The Short Side of Forever
by shoxxic
Summary: Let's see, he says, let's see how long this won't last.
1. Wanderlust

**Notes:** I hope I still know how to write an actual story. Side note to AuburnCollision – consider this challenge accepted. Kind of.

* * *

><p>This is where the story starts.<p>

"If you had the chance to change the past," asks the Earl, "would you?"

* * *

><p>He learns to craft masks when he's bored. He figures that Bookman probably won't approve, but he accidentally gets addicted to the craft. There is something about this whole process of creating, destroying, and recreating himself over and over again. He takes big, ugly, malformed chunks and pounds them flat on the surface of his work area. He pinches at it and creates little noses. Ears. Eyes. Lips. He gives himself high cheekbones this time for the hell of it.<p>

It's pretty easy.

It's even easier to tear it all down to nothing.

His name is Seral.

Bookman pauses. "What are you doing?"

Lavi grins toothily and carelessly lifts the mess of clay up in the air for Bookman to see. They sink like putty in his hands. "What do you think?"

Bookman just stares at it for a while, regards it with something like apathy. The look on his face is neither quite bored nor impressed. It is wholly ambiguous, it is the master trick of the biggest faker of them all, and Lavi really should know better than this.

Bookman sniffs and turns back to perusing the bookshelf he had been cataloging. "I think there's a reason why you're not going to be an artist."

Lavi laughs shortly and shapes another semblance of a mouth. It is quickly contorted into a chapped curl, and he touches it up with a stroke of crimson. "Aw, that's not really a nice thing to say, gramps."

"I'm not here to play nice."

"Don't I know it."

Bookman doesn't even miss a beat. He whacks Lavi on the head before dropping a stack of newspaper clippings on Lavi's cluttered desk. "Watch how you address your elders," he reprimands primly. "And put that thing away, you have work to do today. Did you forget why you're even here?"

Lavi rubs the spot where Bookman had hit him and sets aside the clay for now. He'll finish molding it later. It is something he will have to do, he decides. "I don't think I could forget even if I tried."

The words are heavy in the air, sticky like venom. It is a confession that neither of them will ever choose to acknowledge.

"Good."

Lavi flips through the clippings and sloppily slouches over his desk. Headlines eventually all wash out together anyway, so he never bothers to look at them for too long anymore. His eye is like glass, and it reflects. "So what should I do with this?"

The answer is simple and pretty much the same as usual. The words are cut dry and concise, and Bookman speaks blandly. "Just read and memorize. We'll see tomorrow. Be ready to record, Seral."

Lavi turns through the pages and sees the rewind, repeat headliner of some warning of an onset of some conflict. He picks up his bit of clay again and idly crushes the almost-mask he had been working on. He doesn't even need to read these clippings – or any other clippings in any other place at any other time, for that matter – to figure out what will happen to this town.

This, he decides, is just begging to happen.

* * *

><p>It does, of course.<p>

There is a long silence before them, and it will take even longer before the sun will come out. Lavi closes his eyes and counts to nine. He now knows better than to count to ten.

One, two, three, four. He imagines a countdown, prayers that will never have a chance to be said, the sound of children on Sunday afternoons, the sweet warmth on the intersection between the bakery and the church. Five. He can hear the birds starting to move out, and their wings cut black across the sky.

Six. He holds his breath. Seven, eight. There is the sound of something being killed, of something dying. Or maybe both.

Nine, and there is despair etched out to the horizon. He looks up and sees that sky is now sunk in colors that shouldn't even be allowed to exist in the natural world. Bookman doesn't even flinch.

And.

_Ten. _

"It is time," says Bookman.

* * *

><p>A new town.<p>

Thank god, he thinks.

He can never stay in one place for too long. He moves around enough to never have to belong anywhere, and even just the idea staying in a different town is enough to comfort him. At least this will not be something that will last.

He whistles to himself. The day is still early and the streets are empty, save for the sellers setting up their stands and stalls. Today, he has the streets all to himself.

He only needs to walk through the main street once to understand the rhythm of this town. One of the later things Lavi picks up on as an aspiring Bookman is that streets make up for some of the best storytellers out there. Each stretch of street is a single composition – a beginning, an ending, and a necessary confession, all sharing snatches of history, all leading somewhere. Streets always have to lead to somewhere.

This street is another story – one that discusses anticipation and expectation.

This is one that will end very, very fast, he imagines.

There are more people out now, so Lavi just watches them for a while. People-watching is his secondhand habit. Bookman pronounces it a necessary trade skill. Bookman had always been explicit and exact in his instructions, and Lavi had always wanted to be a Bookman, through and through. So he had listened and he had learned.

"Stay close enough to be a part and understand everything that's going on," Bookman had advised. "But far enough to remain removed and apart. Be able to disappear at any given moment."

It hadn't sat very well with him at first. Disappearing. He bears all the trademarks of someone sunk in silent rebellion: red hair, eye patch, hoop earrings. Or maybe it could have all been desperation. Anxiety. Devastation. There could have been a whole network of feelings crammed inside of him, and he'd never even know.

Once, he tries on all the fads of the season for the hell of it – stiff collars, structured bags, and big, gaudy rings. It is somehow hard to swallow, and his shirt feels too tight. The sensation is something like sinking in too deep.

When he sees his own pretentious reflection through the looking glass, he can feel himself consciously disappearing.

Today, he settles with observing from behind the daily newspaper. The people of the town all walk past him – mothers, fathers, children, market bargainers – without really ever noticing him. Sometimes, he doesn't _want_ to disappear and makes conversation that he knows will never last. Sometimes, he is just waiting to die and start over again with a new name and body.

He puts the newspaper down on the table and closes his eyes. Maybe he should count to nine.

He only makes it to four before time is interrupted. A slant of shadow dances over his thick eyelids, and he blinks his eye open. There is not enough sun out yet, and the girl in front of him smiles and lifts a bag in his direction.

Lavi blinks again and gestures towards the bag. It smells a little like freshly-made bread. "Um, what is it?"

"You're a traveler, aren't you?" She refers to his clothes. "You don't really look like you're from around here." And then offers the bread. "Well, you look like you need it, so here. It didn't cost much or anything, really."

He regards the bag warily for a while. He knows better than anyone what a stranger is capable of.

She picks up on his attitude and shrugs. She drops the bag on the table. "Do what you want with it. But it really is good bread, honest, and it would be such a waste if you end up throwing it away."

He deliberates. He can turn this conversation into a terrific work of pointless flirtation, but she does not seem like that kind of girl, and he is far too removed and jaded today to pretend to really even care anymore.

But he still makes sure to show teeth when he smiles before speaking again. His tone is carefully careless and blithe, but his words are more honest than anything he's said in a long while. "Are you giving this to me 'cause you pity me or something?"

The girl shrugs again, and this time her blatancy cuts deep enough to numb. "Well, yes." She pauses for a moment, weighs her words heavy. "I get the feeling you're about to kill yourself."

* * *

><p>The sky isn't exploding, but it comes close. It is painted up in a devastating bright blue color, and he can only look at it for so long before his eyes start to strain and dry up. He tries not to look at the things that he knows won't last for long.<p>

_Your next name will be Deak._

It's been a while since he's last changed names. The timing is fitting enough though, he decides. The first few times Bookman had asked him to change names, it hadn't mattered so much – he had been so _young_ back then. The next few times, he had been older and he had seen much more. It is harder than he will ever admit, so he learns how to be ready for when the time comes.

He now has a ritual for these transition states. Sometimes, Bookman doesn't give him enough time to breathe in between personas. Other times though, Bookman tells him how long he has left before he has to die again. Sometimes, Bookman allows, these kinds of preparations are necessary.

It is in these final moments before he kills himself that he wants to do something he's never done before. He tries to create something he can tuck away for forever in the cornerstone of his memory. It is his final act of pathetic desperation to remind himself that he is still a part of this world, that he matters, that this will all amount to something, even though this is really just another phase.

He doesn't even know anymore. It's hard to consciously want to live when you've already died so many times. You kind of get used to just existing.

It turns out bread girl's kind of right, he supposes. He really is getting ready to kill himself.

The rest is reality control.

Bread girl finds him later in the day. It's not totally surprising or unexpectedly, since he hasn't moved since day first broke. He sits spent, and the bag of bread beside him is already empty.

She doubles-checks when she passes by him on those storytelling streets. "You're still here?"

He winks and mock-salutes. "Guess I haven't killed myself off yet," he responds cheerfully.

She shrugs again, half-smiles, and pulls out the chair across from him. "That's good. What's your name? Or, well, what should I call you?"

His name is Deak, he says. It's actually Seral. Bookman tells him that starting from tomorrow, he will be Deak, so it's not like it's a total lie or anything. "You?" He asks.

She looks up at that impossible stretch of sky above them. "I think I'll be Elaine today."

He pauses and his mouth tips up good-naturedly. "You think?"

"Yeah. I'd rather not be me today, if you know what I mean."

The concept is in all honesty all he's ever even known; the difference is that he doesn't know who he even is to begin with. "Gotcha," he says. He kind of gets it.

She keeps on talking. "I really am glad, though. That you're still here, I mean."

He isn't really sure what to say to this. "Well, I've still got too much to live for," he throws out carelessly. It's at least a half-truth. "Can't stop here, you know what I mean?"

There is a pause. "I guess I judged wrong. Sorry."

"No big."

There is a moment of empty silence before she gets up again. "I should probably get going soon." Pauses. "Hey, Deak?" She waits till he looks back up at her, and her tone is light and transient. "Don't die, alright?" She jokes and sticks out her pinky finger. "Here, it's a promise, okay?"

Promises are never meant for forever and words like these are practically designed just to be broken, so he smiles a smile that shows a little too much teeth and holds out his pinky finger. Their fingers come together, and he can feel the faint tremor of her pulse underneath his own already empty pulse.

This won't last.

"Promise," he reassures breezily without even meaning a thing.


	2. Card games

"The death is unavoidable," says Bookman. And opens the umbrella. "We should get going, Deak."

* * *

><p>He's never been particularly good at the whole upstander thing. Hell, he's never even had to make many decisions for himself by himself. Maybe it is a good thing Bookman isn't here to see how incredibly pathetic he can really be.<p>

This never even happens.

And.

The card in his hand is printed with slanting, finite lines in sharp, geometric precision. There is ink as black as death, and it spills—coils around the spine of the spade in fanning curves, consummate. The effect is hungry, and desperate, and it looks like it will overflow any second now.

He really, _really_ should know better than this.

But.

He slides the ace of spades onto the parquet, hesitates, and lifts the next card from the deck.

It is a brilliant shade of red. The queen of hearts. The color drips and slashes across the medium in fine, porcelain cuts. The shapes are of regular polygons – non-unique and wholly insignificant – familiar like the gunmetal finish of industry. Like cities and pollution, and the world moves faster than he knows.

He reaches for the next few cards in quick succession.

A two, a jack, a seven, another ace.

They are all luckless and meaningless draws. He casts the cards aside and draws the next card from the pile. There's only one type of card in a deck that's important, he discovers quickly enough. Hell, he has all the time in the world to realize this. There's only one card that's capable of holding all the strings, one card that can mean so many things, one card that doesn't even matter. All of the above.

This is something he has to learn all on his own. He can already anticipate Bookman's disapproving reaction, and quickly pushes the thought aside.

This is where it gets tricky. There are two of these printed court jesters in any given standard deck. There's one in black and one in red. The red card always triumphs over the black. Lavi can buy this. In his life experience, red really always does win anyway.

Once, he comes across a book on tarot and standard card decks. According to the excerpt, there is a tarot card acknowledged as the Fool. Its standard equivalent is the black Joker. _An excuse that can be played at any time but can never win._

The criticism goes on to discuss the utility of a joker card, or lack thereof. It can get pretty confusing. _It is omitted from commonalities_, _it is used informally_, _it is to be avoided_. _It can either be extremely helpful or extremely harmful._ And so forth. It is everything and nothing on the same cut edge of cardboard.

It makes for the most terrific identity crisis ever. He studies the black joker card in his hand and imagines both sides to be wiped blank, and wakes up to the sensation of a hand curled cold around his aorta. And a reminder from no one in particular.

_Don't fuck up._

* * *

><p>His next name is to be Lavi.<p>

* * *

><p>Bookman is careful with his words. Bookman is a careful person by nature, but this is something else entirely. Bookman actually says this twice. He says this first when they first arrive at the Order and are waiting for the director to greet them. He says this again now, after Lavi finds him and hands in the assignment Bookman had asked for. It hasn't even been two full weeks yet.<p>

"Lavi," Bookman says just as bleakly as he had the first time, and the new name rolls a little too easily off his tongue, "Watch yourself. Be careful."

Lavi blinks. "What? With what?"

Bookman is exacting. "Don't forget where you come from," he warns primly. "It is too soon for you to start slipping up."

There is a hint of silence before Lavi grins and waves it off breezily. "Hey, don't be like that. I gotcha the first time, you know," he fakes a yawn. "No big, honest. I'm still a Bookman before anything else, yeah? I've never forgotten anything in my life, either. I can do this," he reassures. "I mean, if I'm not friendly enough, then that'll be suspicious too, right?"

Bookman just watches him for a while. They both know what a fantastic liar Lavi can be. He's only ever learned from the best.

"You talk too much," Bookman concedes before closing his eyes and heading back to the Order's library. When he walks past Lavi, he pauses slightly. "I'll leave it to you, then."

"I know," he says before Bookman is completely out of earshot. His words are buried faster than he will ever choose to acknowledge. "I know."

There is so much that he already knows. There is so much he wishes he doesn't have to know, and there is still so much more he has yet to know. There's only so much one person can take before it just fucks him over.

Lavi closes his eyes. _This will be difficult for you_, Bookman had said, and Bookman's usually good at being right.

The Order had been everything he'd ever expected it to be, and that's the problem. Lavi presses at his temples. Bookman's half-right. He's not mentally ready for something like this—not yet. Maybe not ever.

"Lavi?"

Lavi perks up on instinct at the mention of his name. It's Lenalee.

The first time he had seen her, she had been wrapped in ribbons. The idea sounds pretty at face value, but these ribbons were the type that had been stained with all the fresh battle scars and liquid salt that a girl shouldn't even be allowed to have.

She's that kind of girl, he thinks, who gets overly sentimental about all sorts of things. Someone with emotional attachments. These kinds of people make him feel uncomfortable. It's a bit like watching a gorgeous glass sculpture shatter into pieces and doing absolutely nothing about it.

And this is the kind of girl you want to carry bridal-style so that the train of her dress won't sweep the floor, the kind you don't look at in the eye 'cause you don't want her to know how terrific of a liar you can be.

But Lavi is already too disillusioned about the world outside for pretenses like these, so he mock-salutes and grins. "Whatcha need, Lenalee?"

Lenalee smiles, friendly as ever. "Oh, nothing! I was just wondering why you were standing there. You're not lost, are you?"

_Don't forget where you come from. _It is far too soon to forget Bookman's words, so Lavi thumbs at his head wrap. "Nope, just admiring the architecture," he invents on the spot.

Lenalee blinks. "The architecture?"

"Yeah." Lavi gestures about the room. "'_The mother art is architecture. Without architecture of our own, we have no soul of our own civilization_'," He quotes. "Frank Lloyd Wright—he's an American architect. But I guess what I mean to say is that this place is gonna be my home for a while, right?" It's all bullshit derived from the cornerstones of his memory, and he is already far too good at this liar game. "So I'm just taking it all in, you know?"

Lenalee's smile is thoroughly heartbreaking, and it takes Lavi aback. His supposition is right—she really does make him feel uncomfortable. Lenalee takes his cold hand in hers. "Welcome to the family," she beams. "I'm really, really glad you're here."

* * *

><p>This is how Seral dies.<p>

It is in all honesty a fantastic ending, he has to admit. Maybe not the most _suitable_ ending for someone who never really even lived, but still—fantastic.

After the bread girl leaves, he makes haste to break the promise he had never even intended to keep. _Don't die, alright? _The words are imprinted in his memory for all of eternity, but he is determined, and he is ready to make the most he can out of Seral's existence, whatever that even means.

So he makes for the loudest part of town. This town is small and quaint at surface value, but Lavi knows better. Everything is always pretty at face value, and there's always something ugly just begging to be discovered.

He knows exactly what he's looking for, what he wants, and what he _needs_. The trick is just getting it.

So he pushes away Bookman's rule, even though the words curl warningly around his lungs. "Don't get involved with people," Bookman had taught him early on, "Don't confuse work with anything else. Avoid complications."

This time, his rebirth ritual demands playing with lives. Sometimes, when all you do is observe, you feel like you have no control in this puppeteer kind of world. It's unsettling to realize how insignificant you can be, so he enters the pub and scopes out the room for something – _anything_ – that will satisfy his condition.

_Do something you've never done before._

So he holds his breath, and.

Sweat.

Blood.

The smell of citrus fruit and the taste of pennies.

His pulse surging.

Seral's dying hours are fantastic, and cruel, and all he can do is smile the bitter smile of a man who knows too much and can confess to none. "I'm sorry," he says to no one in particular.

* * *

><p>Bookman is right. Lavi is a difficult character to play.<p>

After much deliberation, the tentative Bookman successor decides that this persona should be obnoxious. So Lavi is friendly to the point of being openly irritating. The nosy, know-it-all pheromone he intentionally emits seems to complement his Bookman successor sort of occupation stereotype quite well, too. After the first few days, he decides to tack on shallow and blatantly flirtatious to his persona, just in case the others start to take him seriously. Lavi is goofy. Lavi is annoying. Lavi is overbearing. Lavi becomes someone who you don't necessarily try to involve unless you really, really have to. Lavi becomes someone you don't want to learn too much about.

It is the most brilliant and convenient lie he could have ever crafted, and Lavi has this all figured out down to the gritty details, like which distinct dialect would be most appropriate for Lavi to use, or what colors – orange and turquoise, he decides – would best suit Lavi's more flamboyant nature. Or at least, he thinks he's doing a fairly good job at being Lavi until he meets Kanda.

Kanda is difficult to handle—he doesn't buy any bit of his act. He doesn't even have the courtesy to pretend to either.

Lavi is all grins the second time he meets Kanda. "Hey," he says cheerfully when the latter comes to pass by him in the halls. "You just got back from a mission, right? How'd that go?" When Kanda doesn't even acknowledge him, he tries a different tactic. "Your name's Yu, right? It's a good name, man."

The first time, Kanda had just given him a detached glance-over and a curt greeting, if the acknowledgement could even be called that. This time though, Kanda stops and stares at him with a look that far surpasses irritation. Lavi blinks. He hadn't anticipated this total coldness from someone who is supposed to be a comrade.

This time, Kanda actually _looks_ at him, and speaks to him too, and the feeling is kind of like being seen through completely. It is discomforting. "It's Kanda," he says shortly before moving again.

"Ah—gotcha."

When Kanda passes Lavi, he stops briefly again. "You," Kanda says and pauses, but only for a little while before he starts walking again. His footsteps resound. "I don't trust you."

It is an entirely valid judgment—hell, it's one that Lavi readily reserves for every stranger around him. But this isn't one that is meant to be passed on _him_. Lavi shrugs it off breezily and spends the rest of the evening holed up in his room, carefully retracing the nuances in his conversations, trying to figure out where he had slipped up. Bookman's guidebook doesn't have a lesson on gaining trust, but it feels important to do all the same.

The third time he meets Kanda again, it is at Komui's request.

Kanda is adamant. "No."

The European branch director clears his throat loudly. "Ah, well, Kanda, this isn't really for you to decide, you know."

Kanda doesn't budge, and Lavi just watches, divided somewhere between fascinated, curious, and amused. He wonders if he is supposed to be offended about this or not.

"I don't want to," Kanda says curtly. "I'd rather take this solo."

Komui laughs. "'I don't want to'? You're not a kid anymore, Kanda." He shuts up quickly upon catching the look on Kanda's face. "But, er, anyway. It's Lavi's first mission, and you guys are around the same age, so wouldn't it make sense for you guys to go together for this one? Show him the ropes and all."

Kanda has his arms crossed. "Whatever," he says. He turns slightly to Lavi. "I'll meet you at the exit at 6 tonight."

Komui clears his throat again after Kanda leaves. "Ah, sorry about that. He's a bit grumpy sometimes, but he's serious about his work. And he can really be, uh, caring. Honest."

Lavi smiles the predictable smile that's expected of him. "Yeah, don't worry about it," he breezes. "So what's this all about anyway?"

Komui hands him a neat, black booklet embossed with the gaudy Rose Cross insignia of the Black Order. "All the details are in there. Glance over it now, pack all the necessary belongings you think you'll need, and you can read about it in more depth during when you travel. You know how to get down to the lowest level here, right?"

Lavi takes the booklet and mock-salutes. "Yeah, I gotcha," he grins again. "Good luck to me, huh?"

"Well," And this time, the corners of Komui's mouth are stiff. "You'll need it."

There is a long stretch of silence before Lavi speaks again. He blinks. "Ah—I'll keep that in mind. So..."

He leaves the room and stands outside the door for a while before he remembers himself and where he is and heads back to his room. This will be another one of those things he cannot forget.

And.

_Don't fuck up._

At ten before six, Lavi is ready to go and already underground. The thing about traveling and leaving all the time is that you eventually learn how to pack quickly and efficiently. Because you never really know how long anything will ever last_. Always move fast._

Kanda just glances over at him. "Got everything?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go." He nods at the other man accompanying them. "This is our Finder for this mission. Finders scope out where possible fragments of Innocence might be," Kanda says shortly.

Lavi grins and holds out his hand. "I'm Lavi, and I'm new to the Order. Nice to meet you."

The Finder nods back at him, takes his hand. He might have been smiling back at Lavi, but it is difficult to tell through the high collar of his parka uniform. "I'm Maroke."

Kanda, Lavi is beginning to catch on, really doesn't know how to wait. He cares even less so for people skills. "Let's get going."

Once on the canoe, Lavi finds himself fidgeting. If there's one thing he really can't stand, it's silence. They make him feel uneasy. There are a number of sayings that laud silence as music. Lavi knows better though, of course. Silence is never golden—it just screams.

Lavi imagines another countdown.

The queasiness settles in his stomach. According to the booklet, they are bound for a town called Corleone on the edges of Italy. Lavi's never been here before, so as per Bookman habit, he scavenges through the streets, mentally recording the details about this place.

Kanda is impatient. "We're on a schedule, hurry up."

"Ah—wait—sorry." Lavi catches up and scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry, got a little carried away there, huh?"

Kanda doesn't say anything and continues navigating through the streets instead. He stops suddenly.

Lavi blinks. "What's up?"

"You've seen an akuma before, right?"

Lavi blinks again. "What?"

"Akuma," he's impatient. "You have Innocence, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah. That's why I'm he—"

"Then watch closely. Watch the people and how they interact. Akuma like crowds of people. Be ready to interfere once something's amiss."

This is the most Kanda's ever spoken to him, and the edge to his voice is dangerous. People are different when living's at stake.

"Gotcha."

A boy comes up to them and beams, rosy cheeks and the whole works. "Would you like to buy some bread, sir?"

Kanda doesn't even look at him for more than a second. "No thanks."

The boy tugs at Kanda's coat uniform. "Are you sure? Please? See, the thing is, if I don't sell enough, then my parents are going to be really, really disappointed with me. And, well, you know."

Kanda doesn't budge. "Sorry."

Mechanics click.

Kanda is quick to move. "Mugen," The words fall from his mouth, automatic and familiar, "Activate."

And before Lavi can even react, Kanda neatly slices through the demon machine.

The whole thing is nothing short of awesome. Kanda's Innocence takes the form of a traditional Japanese katana, and there is Innocence like lightning edged blue along the sharp end of his blade. And the way Kanda moves—it's nothing Lavi's seen before. It practically transcends humanity and mortality.

Kanda doesn't even hesitate before he kills.

Kanda turns back to Lavi. "What the hell are you doing?" He snarls. "Take care of the akuma!"

"Oh—right!" Lavi fumbles around for his hammer and activates the fragment of Innocence in his hand.

Fire explodes.

It explodes in a column straight up to the sky, curling and ripping in violent orange.

_Lavi. _

_Lavi._

_Watch.  
><em>

There is screaming. There is the sight of stolen skin burned raw and gunmetal finish. There is hysteria, there is laughter, there is screaming again, there are akuma. Lavi swings his hammer again, and there is the sound of burning fire. There is the death of machines; there is a line of all his former selves and all the wise Bookmen before him.

There is reality.

After, later, when the fire dies out, Kanda considers Lavi for a while before saying anything. "Good work," he finally concedes.

Lavi just nods. "Thanks," he says dumbly.

Kanda sheathes his Innocence and turns to head back to base. "I'm going ahead first. It seems like the akuma here had been looking for Innocence too. There might be more around, so stay alert."

Lavi waits until Kanda is on the verge of disappearing into the horizon before speaking again. And when Kanda is reduced to a dark, insignificant smear at the bottom of the sky, he puts a hand to his temples.

Closes his eyes.

_The war will be different this time, Lavi._

"Goddamn."


	3. Yesterday's dreamer

Elaine goes and finds him the morning after. It isn't hard to do considering how he's sitting again in the same place he had been the day before. She double-checks when she sees him and holds down the brim of her hat when the wind picks up.

She doesn't even bother with a proper greeting, which is something he figures isn't really her style. Her eyes widen. "What happened to you? Are you alright?"

She's referring to his face. Lavi touches the thick bruise swelled purple under his eye, makes sure to hide a wince, and grins. "Are you talking about this? I thought it'd be a good addition to my face. Doesn't it make me look more distinct?" He quips cheerfully.

She doesn't buy it and impatiently swats his hand away instead. She squints down at the bruise and sounds appropriately worried, he supposes. "No, really, you should get that checked. It looks pretty bad."

He really should, but he isn't ready to face Bookman's disapproving silence quite yet. He tentatively fingers the bruise, applies some pressure, and actually winces this time. Every now and then, he's been pressing his index finger down on it. The sensation is actually somewhat comforting in its dull pain. It is difficult to explain, but that doesn't really matter, he decides. It's enough to remind him of how very real this really is.

Elaine is getting pretty insistent for a stranger. "Look—you flinched just now, didn't you? That's definitely not a good sign."

"Yeah, I'll get to it in a bit," he says blithely. "Thanks for worrying."

"You're kidding, right? Do you need help getting to the hospital or anything?"

"I don't need anything like that." He pauses briefly and selects his words with care. It's not even a lie this time. "My gramps is a genius about this kind of stuff."

"Oh." She's still fidgeting. "You're going to get it looked at, right?"

"'Course."

"Don't lie. Please."

Lavi blinks. She's somewhat more annoying than he'd bargained for, but the response is still weird. There is a hint of distress hanging on the corners of her words. "I'm not," he says breezily and points to his bruise, mouth still tipped up. "My grandpa will treat it later. Don't worry about it, really."

Pauses. "So how did you get that, anyway?"

"Got in a fight."

A beat. "Wait, really? Are you okay? Why?"

Her questions are asked all in the wrong order, and it's kind of amusing. Some people really are like that, he supposes. He shouldn't be surprised. Lavi grins and thumbs along the edge of his head wrap. "I've never gotten in a fight before," he confesses.

Elaine just gapes at him for a while before she finally speaks, and it's stubborn, accusing, and defensive all at once. "You're not taking me seriously."

She's at least half-right. The corners of his mouth tip up again. "No, I'm serious. Really. This is my first fist fight, and I guess it didn't turn out so well for me. Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted, I guess."

She swats his explanation away impatiently again, distracted. "No, not that. You're evading my question. I mean, how did you get that? Why? Did someone hit you?"

He has to grin at this one. "Well, obviously." He points at his bruise. "You can't exactly get accidentally injured in a place like this."

She pauses. "You're making fun of me," she says uncertainly.

He is. "Alright, alright, sorry, that was kind of rude of me." He covers a yawn before speaking again. "Well, the truth is, I insulted a guy last night and he punched me in the face."

Another pause. "Why?"

"Why?" He scratches at his head. "Well, I guess I've always wanted to try it out."

"But _why_?"

He grins in good humor. "Sorry, I don't think I can really explain it." He pretends to think about it for a while. "Like, this is probably one of those things that a girl won't understand, you know?"

There is not much to say to that, so Elaine just pulls out the chair next to him. "Does it hurt?" She finally asks.

"Not even," He waves it off. "You can stop worrying about it, really."

There is another silence before Elaine picks at it again. She scratches at her neck and smiles at him sheepishly. "Sorry about all that. It's just that, well, how should I say this? Someone close to me is really... well, sick right now, so..."

It sounds sufficiently reasonable, so Lavi just shrugs and offers another easy smile. "It's fine. Compassion is always good thing."

"Yeah."

Another thought occurs to him. "Is this why you gave me bread the other day then?"

What he really wants to ask is whether it had been out of pity, but he already knows the answer to that one. This is one thing that doesn't need to be confirmed.

She leans back into her chair and looks up at the sky. "Kind of."

He blinks. "Kind of?"

She smiles but doesn't say a thing. After a while, the wind picks up again, and the church bells toll, monochrome. Elaine holds down her hat, stands up, and the slant of the shadow of her silhouette grins down at him. "I have to go now," she says. "I'll see you later, though?"

He salutes and doesn't expect a thing. "Gotcha."

He watches her make for the church at corner of the next street. He's never been any good at the whole faith thing, but he stares up at the stained glass and thinks about all the times he's tried so hard to believe.

He only sees the glass shattering and can't. Bookman probably explains it best.

_People are all the same, no matter who you meet, when you meet them, or where you meet them_, Bookman had said._ They don't change._

And what he had left unsaid.

_Don't expect much._

* * *

><p>Four and a half weeks.<p>

It isn't so much that he doesn't _want_ to believe. He does. Honest. It's just a lot harder than it sounds.

He's actually a bit of an idealist, not that he'll ever confess to it. He knows exactly how much Bookman won't approve of this either, but after immersing himself in a world of Descartes, Nietzsche, knowing how long he still has to live, and knowing how much more he still has yet to see, it's too depressing and just suicidal to give up completely on the alive. Descartes writes that God gives us enough resources to ascertain the true nature of reality and attributes all errors on human willfulness. Nietzsche just claims that if you aren't a superman, then you are an ant. The implication here is that there are lives that are worth more than others.

It's too much to realize how hopelessly pathetic, irrelevant, and not in control you really are. It's even worse once you begin to understand that your impact is wiped clean once you die. That you don't even matter. _Your efforts are futile._

Or at least, Lavi's seen enough to know this much. People really just can't be trusted.

So at the very least, he learns, you have to trust yourself_._ When you can't even do that anymore, it's game over.

Bookman neatly slides into the seat across from him.

Lavi sits up a little straighter in acknowledgment and yawns. "Morning, gramps."

Bookman returns the greeting. "Morning," he says before pausing for a while and looking a little more closely at Lavi.

Lavi blinks and speaks through a mouthful of food. "What?"

Bookman calmly picks up his cup of tea and observes lightly. "No, you just look like you didn't get much sleep last night. There are some pretty big bags under your eyes," he indicates. "And swallow before you speak."

Lavi makes a grand show of swallowing his food down before grinning cheekily. "They're nowhere as bad as yours though, right?"

Bookman squarely steps on his foot underneath the table without even missing a beat.

Lavi winces. "Holy _shi_—"

"Watch your tongue," Bookman says primly before neatly cutting up his egg.

Lavi shuts up. For a while, they eat in companionable silence. It's nice and comfortable, and this definitely won't last.

He's right. Bookman is the first to speak, and the subject matter is grim. "That last battle."

Lavi holds his breath.

"The body count?"

"Yeah, I gotcha." He swallows the food down and, with a twirl of his fork, recites, "57 killed, 64 injured."

"Lavi." He pauses briefly. "What do you think of this war?"

Lavi forks at the rest of his breakfast and makes a big mess in his plate. "I'll just watch for now," he concedes. "But it seems like the war's the same. Only, just the object's changed."

Bookman just watches for a while. "Don't play with your food."

"Yeah, yeah," he yawns.

Four and a half weeks is how long he's been Lavi. Or how long he's tried to be Lavi. This time, letting go had been more difficult than he could have ever imagined.

_Trust yourself._ The thing is, it only gets harder and harder to do the longer you try and live like this. Lavi presses his hands to his temples briefly before looking up at Bookman. "Hey, gramps," he says and waits for Bookman to look up before continuing. He's still putting his words together, dangling off that last bit of string.

"What is it?"

"Are we gonna stay here till this war is over, too?"

Bookman doesn't say anything for a while. "Wherever the record is, we'll go," he concedes.

It is such a typical Bookman response that Lavi puts his fork down. It's not like he should have expected more. "Just like that, huh?" He yawns again. "Can't tell if this is going to be better than Deak."

A longer silence.

"Deak is Deak. Just watch," Bookman finally says, and it is neither harsh nor comforting. "Just watch and concentrate on being who you are right now, Lavi."

* * *

><p>A few more days pass by before anything really happens again. He has all the time in the world for that.<p>

The seat he usually occupies is taken and he's already been at that spot for too long already anyway. Bookman doesn't have any work for him today, so he spends the day wandering around the town, even though he knows it far too well by now.

At some point, she runs into him. Or, more accurately, she would've passed by him completely if he hadn't called her out.

"Hey," he says cheerfully once he recognizes the contours of her silhouette.

Elaine blinks and backtracks. "Oh, hi."

He holds up two fingers in greeting. "What's up?"

"Oh, I was just running an errand—well I have time now, I guess. How are you?" She blinks again. "Your bruise!"

Lavi grins toothily. "I toldya so, didn't I?"

She's still gaping in wonder. "It's really gone."

"Like I said, my gramps is a genius with this stuff."

She steps into the shade. "Is he a doctor or something?"

Not even. "You could say that." He scratches at the back of his head. "Or, well, the relationship between us is more like master and apprentice than gramps and grandkid, so later I can take care of my own bruises."

Her mouth tips up. "I wasn't even thinking about that. But if he's a practitioner, then why are you guys traveling?"

"To see and learn about the world and all it has to offer... or something like that, kinda."

Elaine's eyes are wide. "That's incredible," she says. "I've never even been out of this district." Pauses. "What's it like?"

"'What's it like'?" He repeats.

"Yeah. If you travel all the time, then that means you get to see a lot of things that most people never get to, right? That's really incredible."

Her words hit so close to home. "That's right."

"And?" She prompts.

His mouth splits into another big grin. "It's grand. A big, old adventure," he says extravagantly. "You really do get to see all the things you never even thought possible."

Elaine doesn't say anything.

He blinks. "What?"

She pauses. "I can't figure you out."

This time, he pauses. "What does that mean?"

Uncertain. "I mean—your tone. You don't sound happy about it."

Lavi looks up, surprised. He hadn't anticipated this much. But then again, he already knows better than to forge any sorts of expectations. "Well, not everything you see is... _good_ in this line of work."

A pause. "I get that."

The response is strange. Actually, half of her responses are strange and unpredictable. On edge, almost. He pauses and isn't sure if he's meant to probe further or not. He knows better than to. But sometimes, you really just get tired of waiting to live all the time, so he dives. "So what's your story?"

A slight pause. "What do you mean?"

He's never been good at this caring-and-talking-about-it thing, and now he's thoroughly convinced he's saying all the wrong things at all the wrong moments. He scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh, ah, well, I didn't mean to get into your private life. I'm sorr—"

She cuts him off in mid-apology. "Don't."

He blinks slow.

"I never asked you to feel sorry for me."

_Don't expect much._

And she starts.

* * *

><p>He's gotten better at this, somewhat.<p>

He learns to flirt with Lenalee at every other opportunity he gets. Komui, he learns quickly enough, is pretty good at putting on the whole overdramatic protective-older-brother charade, and the theatrics both of them put on are enough for the rest of the science department to decide what kind of person Lavi is. Now, they really do know better than to take him seriously.

And with a job like this, he figures, it's probably better to keep things simple and stupid anyway. Being a soldier and a _comrade_ out on the battlefield is every bit as grim as it had sounded like it would be. _This might be hard for you to adjust to_. Bookman wasn't kidding.

He knows what it's like to kill now, too. His targets aren't human in that sense, but the concept is still the same, and that's what counts. He can't flourish his Innocence with the same efficient elegance that Kanda does, but he's gotten fairly decent at his job now. He's gotten used to seeing skin peeled raw, and anticipating that second when mechanics click, and hearing the nonexistent plea of someone who doesn't even live anymore. He can relate.

He grins at Kanda. "You're still up, Yu?"

Kanda doesn't even look at him. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

Kanda doesn't even hesitate to bring his katana to Lavi's throat. "Don't be stupid. You should already know by now. I go by Kanda."

Lavi gulps for real and takes a step back. "Gotcha, gotcha," he says lightly. "But why are you still up? It's pretty late now, you know."

Kanda readjusts his stance. "Training," he says.

"Training?"

Kanda doesn't even bother to explain, but Lavi's already expected as much. Instead, the other Exorcist just looks over at him. "You?"

"Ah, well, I can't really sleep well right now." He suppresses a yawn. "So I'm just out for a walk right now."

Kanda stops and stares at him.

Lavi blinks. "What?"

"You spend half your time on missions sleeping."

Lavi scratches his eyes and averts his eyes. "Oh. Right. Well."

Kanda closes his eyes briefly and resumes practicing his footwork. "I'm training here," he says. "And I'm not liable for whatever injuries you get in my way. Walk somewhere else."

Lavi signs a salute with his fingers before turning to leave. "Yeah, yeah, gotcha." Before he leaves the room, he looks back cheerfully and the corners of his mouth tip up. "Don't work too hard, Yu."

He is not even a full four inches away from the room when he hears Kanda's response and chilling hiss of a blade cutting straight across thin air. Both resound in chambers of the hall.

"You should try harder."

Lavi closes his eyes.

Some people dream to escape. Others dream to remember.

Lavi does neither in particular. This is how Lavi dreams.

He starts by remembering how he had started his life. He hasn't been a Bookman heir for literally as long as he can remember, but it comes pretty close. The first few years he shadowed Bookman, he had seen, eyes wide open and eyes wide shut. Whichever makes more sense. Then, he had breathed, really breathed, for the first time in his life. He's breathing he's laughing he's existing he's _living_ and

And he imagines dying by the seconds every fucking time.

* * *

><p>This doesn't really ever happen, either.<p>

Tonight, he's at that goddamn table again, and the deck is stacked neat. He'd never wanted to see this happen twice.

But it does, and all he can do is watch helplessly, like some stupid puppet waiting for a cue. The dealer doesn't exist, and technically he doesn't really either, but the cards are laid flat in front of him anyway.

He draws the Joker card again, but this time the meaning of the card is cut clear.

There's only one thing.

And it's.

_Live, Deak._

The rest is up for reality control.

He looks up and offers a lazy half-smile. After some pointless and some more almost-deep conversations, he's starting to get used to her, even though he should know so much better than this. "Yeah?"

She hesitates.

Lavi scratches at the back of his head and yawns. He glances up at that impossible picture of night sky and thinks of how very crystal the stars are tonight. It's starting to get late, too. "What's up?"

She takes a deep breath. It turns out it's something she really, really needs to do. Her words are rushed out fast and completely messed up anyway—just, disorganized. Later – much, much later – he'll realize that she's not thinking straight.

But as for now, her words just spill like liquid. They crash and shatter helplessly, "Well, I had something I wanted to ask, but now that I'm here, I don't know if it's appropriate. I think I'm right. And, to be honest, I've been wanting to know for a while now. But I mean, still, I don't know if it's even—"

"Just go for it."

He's kind of amused. He can't see her face, she doesn't look at his either, and it's unclear who wants to be the one to speak first. Then again, maybe it doesn't even matter. He starts to count to nine but doesn't even make it halfway before the air is cut cold.

"Why did you try to kill yourself?"


	4. 29:11

It's the war.

Kanda lifts the wooden blade in his hand up and readjusts his grip. "Ready?"

He isn't and will probably never be, but it's not like he can exactly admit to that either. So instead, he cocks his head, forges a sheepish grin, and loosely spins the hilt of his own wooden blade in his hand. "Aw, do we really have to do this, Yu? This isn't really my style, you know."

Kanda doesn't wait for long. Lavi already knows so much better than this, so he moves out of the way just in time to miss the sharp jut of the end of Kanda's makeshift sword.

Kanda closes his eyes briefly. There is an inch of irritation hanging off the edge of his words. "It's Kanda," he says. "Stop conveniently forgetting that."

"Yeah, yeah, gotcha," Lavi says breezily before taking another precautionary just-in-case step backwards. "But, honest, this _really_ isn't my thing." Lavi gestures. "I mean, there's a reason why I use a hammer."

Kanda pauses for a moment and looks at Lavi with perfected nonchalance. "Cooperate properly. The more excuses you make, the longer this will take."

Lavi gapes. It is a perfect, practiced balance between carefree playfulness and mild outrage. He's getting Lavi down pretty well now. "Seriously? Do we _really_ have to do this?"

This time, Kanda aims for Lavi's throat and stops just breaths away from touching the stretch of skin over his jugular vein. The sensation is thrilling and chilling all at once, and Lavi can see what it means to be alive. Kanda doesn't even have to say a thing.

Lavi backs up hastily. "Alright, alright, I gotcha. But go easy on me, yeah? I'm not nearly as good as you are at this."

Kanda doesn't say anything and just waits for Lavi to position himself properly.

Lavi's uneasy. "Hey, can you at least show that you've heard what I said, Yu—ah—Kanda?"

Kanda lets this one slide, somewhat. He lifts his blade and adjusts his stance. "Ready?"

He exaggerates a sigh. "As close as I'll ever get, anyway."

It's enough consent for Kanda. The swordsman moves in for the kill.

Lavi stumbles before catching his balance again. "Hey, uh actually—can you start a little slower?"

Kanda moves back again and readjusts his footwork. Lavi hadn't expected Kanda to say anything, but Kanda does. These days, it seems like people are surprising him more and more. He isn't sure how he should feel about it.

Kanda eyes the other Exorcist noncommittally. "There aren't any second chances in life."

There is a brief silence before Lavi grins, laughs, and makes a necessary joke out of the statement. "Damn, I really didn't take you for the type to spew out clichés."

Kanda just scoffs defensively. "It doesn't matter if it's a cliché. That doesn't really make it any less true."

Lavi pauses.

Kanda gestures to his wooden sword again, signaling that he's ready to move on with the training program. "Let's just get this over with," he says. "I have better things to do."

Lavi lifts his wooden sword up. "Yeah, yeah, I gotcha."

Breathes in slow.

This time, Lavi makes the first move.

He runs.

He runs straight for Kanda. He hadn't planned on _thinking_ – honest, he would have loved to just not think for once in his life – but a series of images roll through his eyes anyway, like a sequence of some bad one color film.

Suppress. He sees the soldiers that have lived before him; the men who have sacrificed all they had for something they might have not even believed in. He can taste the salt of the tears of the ones who had to bear the bad news, and the taste of his own bitter disappointment. He can hear himself screaming, can feel the pressure on the toes and the balls of his feet, and can barely see anymore.

He remembers, once, too, he had gotten involved. It is another one of things he really should have known so much better than to do, but sometimes you just have to _be_ human to remember that you are human. He remembers the embers of a fire that will never go down in common history and the peeled skin of a boy who hadn't existed and will never remember.

He remembers all the wars that have been fought, all the stupid conflicts that will never be resolved, and remembers where he is now.

And he thrusts the sword.

Cuts straight across the air.

Holds his breath.

He misses spectacularly, but Kanda considers him for a while anyway. "Well, your resolve isn't bad," he concedes.

"Resolve?" Lavi grins and scratches at the back of his head. "That's all you have to say, huh? Damn."

"Resolve can make up half the battle against akuma," he says unconvincingly.

The words sink. They're too optimistic, Lavi decides. This is probably Kanda's way of being nice. "What do you mean?"

Kanda closes his eyes. "You should already know," he says.

He does, kind of. Bookman had explained all the technicalities behind akuma to him when he first learned about the Order. Bookman had been very particular about them.

It had just been so_ wrong_.

"Akuma are indirect byproducts of sadness and mourning," Bookman had taught him. "Take note of this. In this world, it is possible for tragedies to be orchestrated. It might even be easy to do. The Millennium Earl can take the grief of people and create it into something far worse by manipulating it. This end result is what we call an 'akuma'."

And.

"It is possibly one of the greatest human tragedies out there."

And so the cycle of grief continues.

Kanda takes both of the wooden swords in hand and motions to head back. "Even if your Innocence doesn't take the form of a katana, it never hurts to practice. The best thing you can do is understand and trust your Innocence. Learn how to use your Innocence in as many ways as possible."

There is a long pause. There is something heavy in the air, and after a while, Lavi looks back at Kanda.

Kanda turns to leave with a last bit of advice. "Don't half-ass this."

Dead air.

"People's lives are at stake here."

* * *

><p>"You sure you want to know?"<p>

He arches an eyebrow. "Well, yeah. Now you make it sound really interesting or something."

She pauses before laughing. "Actually no, it's not. Honest. That's why I felt like I should warn you before I start."

He laughs an easy laugh too. "Just go for it."

"My story, huh?" Elaine sighs and looks up at the infinite side of the sky. "Well... I guess the easiest way to say it is that I have a painfully, painfully normal life. Nothing ever happens around me and it's boring."

The complaint is thoroughly trivial and whiny, and Lavi bites down his lower lip from retorting. That would be out of character, he decides.

"...Or so I'd like to say."

Lavi blinks. "What do you mean?"

"Just kidding." She smiles sheepishly. "Well, that was pretty lame, huh? Maybe I'll tell you some other time, actually."

She switches on a new tangent, kind of. It will take him much longer to realize that the indirect question she poses is one that she actually needs answered, and no one ever will before time's up and it's already too late.

But as for now, "But there's probably a lot of things I would've changed, I think."

"What do you mean?"

"Ever wanted to relive a moment and change something from happening? Or the other way around too works, I guess."

He considers it for a while. "I think everyone's had a moment like that at least once at some point in their lives," he says carefully without betraying his own confessions. He wipes them blank and crumples them in his fist. The worst thing he could do is say something that'll sum the lack of worth to his existence.

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

He turns and yawns and she gets up to leave for the day.

Later, he thinks about it again and touches through the archive of his memories. _Ever wanted to relive a moment?_

No, he decides. _No. _He wouldn't want to relive a thing, he thinks. Not the moment he had accepted Bookman's proposition, nor the first time he'd been out of town, nor his first war. He wouldn't relive the time he'd punched both his ears with bitter silver – and all that blood – the time he nearly drowned before he learned how to swim, or his first death. None of that.

Except.

_What if you could live twice?_

This and now.

* * *

><p>Komui takes a seat at the table Lavi is at.<p>

Lavi swallows down the remaining mush of his breakfast before looking up and grinning cheerfully. "What's up?"

His smile fades fast. The typical cheerful demeanor emulated from the European branch director is gone, and all that's left is a flicker of the gaunt face of someone's who's seen too much and knows how much more despair is to come.

Lavi drops his voice, "Anything new on the battlefront?"

Komui presses at his temples. "No, no, nothing major happened... well, yet anyway." He looks up and offers a grim smile. "It seems like the Earl is building up his army more... enthusiastically than usual though." A slight pause. "I suspect that things will only get harder from here."

His throat suddenly feels thicker, despite everything. "Oh."

Komui's tone gets immediately lighter and breezier. "Well, well, don't worry about that! Anyway, I just dropped by to make sure that Bookman talks to you today."

Lavi blinks. Bookman _always_ talks to him. "About what?"

Pause. "Well, it's Bookman's conversation," he says. Komui looks up again when he sees Kanda passing by. "Kanda! Want to join us for breakfast today?"

Kanda scoffs without even really sparing a glance. "Pass. Don't you have work to do anyway?"

Komui smiles to himself before getting up and excusing himself. "Well, that's Kanda for you." He picks up his tray. "I'll see you around, then, Lavi."

"Yeah."

After Komui leaves, Bookman comes.

Lavi yawns, "Morning, gramps. The weather really sucks today."

Bookman just sighs. "Good morning to you too, Lavi."

Lavi looks up. "Anything new?" A slight pause. He gestures. "I mean, other than... you know."

Bookman primly sets his tray down and neatly seats himself across from his apprentice. "Something like that," he says.

Lavi chews at the cut of apple he'd just popped in his mouth. "What is it?"

"We have a new assignment."

Swallows. "Yeah, okay." And considers it for a while. "Where? When?"

Bookman eyes the other Exorcist. "This time though," he starts, "remember that you're a Bookman first."

Lavi blinks. "And by that, you mean...?"

"Role confusion," Bookman explains. "You're always a Bookman when you're an Exorcist, but you're not always an Exorcist when you're a Bookman."

Lavi's mouth tips up. "You'd think I know that better than anything else." He waves it off. "I wouldn't worry about it."

Bookman eyes him again. "If you say so then."

Another slight pause before Lavi picks at it again. "So what's this one about?"

"The Noah."

Lavi pauses.

Bookman sets down his cup of tea and watches the heat from the hot liquid curl for a while. "I've told you about them before, Lavi, but the context may have changed, so I'll tell you again. There's a group of people called the Noah," he says, folding his hands together. "People who adopt human characteristics and are said to have stigmata cut across their foreheads. Historically, the disciples of Noah fought the first users of Innocence in what culminated in the first destruction of the world—remember the story of the Great Flood?"

Lavi nods.

"Now, in this war, Lavi, they hold the cards."

Pause. "What do you mean?"

"They're the ones with the ability to command akuma. There's a man who's willing to talk to us about what he knows." Bookman pauses. "Remember what I said about testimonies?"

"Always take 'em with a grain of salt, 'cause you can never trust anyone to know the truth, whatever it may be." He thumbs at his head wrap. "And that's why there's gotta be Bookmen out there, to keep the unrecorded record straight and all."

"Good."

And decisive.

"We'll leave in a week."

* * *

><p>There are things that some people will just never understand.<p>

It's not really like it's their fault, he supposes. It's just that, in this hell of a world, there are all sorts of different circumstances and different experiences assigned to different people. Some people are just born luckier than others. It can't be helped.

Then again, maybe it doesn't matter much to begin with. 'Cause in the end, you either die, or you die trying. Death is still the only end result there is out there for all people.

Which reminds him.

He turns to face her, breaks the easy silence they'd been sitting in. "Oh yeah, I've been wondering about this for a while, but..." The words are actually more difficult than he'd imagine, but he spits them out anyway. "Why did you say that you thought I was going to kill myself?"

A pause.

The subject matter still seems a bit too heavy, he realizes, so he tacks on breezily, "I mean, it's kind of depressing for someone to hear that, you know what I mean?"

Elaine cringes. "Oh, I'm sorry... yeah, that was pretty rude of me. Sorry."

He grins easily. "Stop apologizing, it's fine, really. I just wanna know... well, you know." He trails off delicately and briefly wonders if he really wants to know the answer to that one.

"Oh." She thinks about it for a while. "How should I say this... um, there was a point in my life where I, uh, kind of looked like you did the first time I met you."

He looks up.

"Well, I don't want to go into the details and all, but you know, in the end, it kind of felt like too many things were going on at once, and for a while, I thought about... yeah. You know. Giving it all up."

He waits for it to sink in and blinks. "Wait, you?"

"Yeah." She looks up and offers an awkward half-smile. "Seems strange, huh?"

"Huh."

In all honesty, she'd looked something like the last person he'd expected to consider suicide. But he already knows better than to take things at face value.

Lavi grins. "Oh, well, seems like things were looking up for you, huh? Well, that's good."

She laughs. "Thanks, I guess." She glances back at him. "What about you then?"

"Hm?"

"Not to intrude or anything, but—are you feeling... better now? Than when we first met, I guess."

He winks. "What do you think?"

The corners of her mouth tip up. "You seem like you're in pretty good spirits I guess," Elaine concedes, "if you're up and flirting already."

He's in a talking mood today, he realizes. He scratches his head and thinks about it for a while. "Well, to be honest, I guess you could say that I was... reborn the day after we met. So kind of."

She blinks. "Uh—"

He realizes what his wording sounds like and hastily corrects himself. "Oh no, not like that, I mean. Uh, I kind of meant that in a serious way, really. I'm not that cheesy. Honest."

"Oh." A thought occurs to her, and then a cut of eager anticipation. "Wait, when you say reborn—"

Stops.

He looks up. "What?"

Tentative. "When you say reborn, do you mean that... spiritually? I mean, were you, um, rescued?"

He blinks. "Um."

"Okay never mind, don't answer that. That was stupid. And personal." Elaine smiles sheepishly again. "I mean, it doesn't really matter whether you were or weren't. I'm just glad that you look more genuinely cheerful now. That's really good," she ends lamely. "Yeah."

Lavi can feel the corners of his mouth tipping up again. There really are all types of people in this world. Some are more naïve than others. Some know less than others. And maybe it's better for some people to never get involved in this hell of a world. Some things are more heartbreaking to witness than others.

So instead.

"Thanks," he says breezily.

"For what?"

He thinks about it for a while and waves a hand languidly. "For caring, I guess."

* * *

><p>Real time.<p>

The count today almost hits 300. The death toll. Three _hundred._ Everybody _knows_, of course, but no one says a thing. It's easier that way, somewhat. More appropriate.

It's the war again.

It's always the goddamn war.

The news is making itself around headquarters right about now, he guesses. There is the sound of Lenalee choking back her tears again, that knowing, closed-off look in Bookman's eyes – and Kanda's too – the palpable tension in the air, and he excuses himself, buries his head, closes his eyes, and escapes the present.

Anything.

Reprise.

Elaine looks like she gets it, somewhat. In her own way, he figures.

She turns and tells him, "You know what my pastor once said during service? 'If you were to describe God in one word, it would have to be war'."

Lavi stills._ Of all things..._

That goddamn war again.

"That was the strangest thing I've ever heard, honest. I thought of salvation, mercy, grace, love, and you know, stuff like that. But war? Really? That was just..." She stops and smiles. "But I kind of get it now, though."

Hollow. "Why war?"

She reflects for a while before forming her words together. "God has plans," she says carefully. "His actions, his words, his goals—I mean, the trials He puts us through really do feel like war, and they completely test our faith, and sometimes, it gets hard to remember that this is His love and His desire to watch us mature and find the light in even our worst situations."

A slight pause.

And then, faith. "But God knows what He's doing, right? It's kind of like that one verse in Jeremiah, you know? When Jeremiah sends that letter to the exiles in Babylon, and he reminds those in suffering of God's intentions, that God has His designs, that He's still there."

It takes him a while, but he knows the one she's talking about.

_For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future._

Jeremiah 29:11.

"Ah, I got a bit off-tangent there. But um, anyway, I guess what I meant to say is that we're constantly facing our own wars, and honestly, sometimes the best we can do is to continue to have faith in Him, you know? I think, in a sense, war brings us closer to God—reminds us that He is here, that He'll listen to our stories, you know what I mean?" Elaine scratches at the back of her neck. "Er, well, I hope that at least kind of made sense."

He... kind of gets it, but it still kind of bothers him. "Where did your faith come from?"

She blinks. "What do you mean?"

He gestures kind of uncomfortably. Faith has never been his best discipline. "I mean, I don't know the details or anything, but it kind of sounds like you've been through quite a bit. And if God put you through so much, then shouldn't it actually be harder to—"

She breaks him off with a smile that he can't even touch.

He stops. His mouth feels dry.

"Because," she says, "Because even when no one's there, God's still listening."

* * *

><p>Bookman is grim.<p>

"Deak," he says, "I'm going to tell you something you're not going to want to hear."

* * *

><p>And later, he changes his mind again, 'cause he's feeling far more desperate and on edge, and pathetic too, and Bookman really hadn't spared any of the details this time, as expected, but <em>still<em>.

He puts a hand to his forehead.

Bookman had been right.

This is just fucked-up.

"You believe in God, right?"

She doesn't even have to stop to think about this one. He had already known this much—this much she had already made herself pretty clear on. He doesn't even know how far he'll want to push this, but.

Her answer reflects. "Yes."

"And people? Do you believe in people?"

This time, a slight pause and caught off-guard, but still, "Uh well, yeah, I guess so."

His fingers are itching, begging to confess to—_anything_. Anything_._ It doesn't even matter anymore. He's practically on the brink of—he presses a hand to his temples again, and his mouth is starting to taste like the bitter bones of copper too. "Has anyone ever told you about man-made demons?"


	5. Deal with God

The thing about resurrection is that it sounds really, really good at face value.

Just imagine.

Being able to physically exist and actually live again after being pronounced biologically dead. Getting that lucky second shot at life and appreciating so many more things the second time around. Standing up again older and wiser and learning from your mistakes so you don't screw it all up again. All that good stuff.

Bookman had not been so relenting. "It's impure," he says bluntly. "What is lost should never be returned. Keep note – even in ancient Greece religion, resurrection as deities was possible, but only for select individuals. The rest of the people were subjected to the normal death. The resurrection of Christ helped foster the idea of redemption – spiritual resurrection, so to speak – but the resurrection of the common dead is more difficult to deal with."

Lavi is itching. It's near summer now, and the mosquitoes are more enthused than ever. "Okay."

"Even one of the more popular theories follows that once death approaches, soul and body are separated as they leave this world. They aren't meant to be reunited again. Socrates."

Lavi lazily swats at another mosquito and nods. He gets that.

"But in this world, Deak," Bookman continues, "resurrection is something that happens."

Bookman's tone speaks for itself.

"Uh, what do you mean by that, gramps?"

Light glances off Bookman's eyes. "I'm going to tell you about the apostles of Noah."

Seven thousand years ago, there already had been the word. There had already been heaven, earth, and light. There already had been sky and land and sea, and stars and creatures, too. There had been mankind, and desire, and jealousy, and punishment. There had been succession and there too had been the birth of Noah.

Bookman looks up next. "Lavi, what does Genesis 6 say? Summarize it."

Lavi has this one down easy. "Ah well, basically... God saw that humans weren't as, well, good, so to speak, as he thought they were and then resolved to wipe out the whole race, right?"

"Yes," Bookman concedes. "And what happened after, after God had confided in Noah about his worries?"

"The Great Flood that destroyed everything." He thinks back a bit. "And then Noah and his family and his two sets of animals restarted the strain of life."

Bookman neatly folds his hands together. "How much faith do you put in the Bible?"

A slight pause. Lavi blinks. "Um."

"Because this is where we'll diverge from the story you know."

Noah had walked faithfully with God, and because of Noah, all life repopulated. So Noah too had apostles, says Bookman. Fourteen of them.

This time, Bookman gets straight to the point. "You understand that, logically, all life that exists now is descended from Noah? Consequently, if we look at it that way, all life now shares Noah's genes."

Lavi nods. It makes enough sense, he supposes.

"But instead of a flood, the first apostle of Noah actually fought something called Innocence."

"Innocence?"

There is a faint glimmer in Bookman's eyes. Faint, but still there. Lavi knows this look.

"A gift from God," Bookman says.

Lavi's unsure with how he's supposed to deal with this new bit of knowledge or with that knowing, expectant look in Bookman's face. "What does it do?" He finally asks. "Or what is it? This 'Innocence' thing, I mean."

Bookman calmly unfolds his hands. Folds them again. "People who are compatible with God's gift are called Exorcists. Exorcists use Innocence," Bookman pauses again, "to purify 'akuma'."

Demons.

A pause.

"You actually expect me to believe that there are demons?" He groans. "Are you starting to get touched in the head or something?"

Bookman slams a kick over Lavi's head without even skipping a beat. "Don't sound so happy about something like that," he sniffs primly before calming continuing the previous conversation. His tone turns serious again. "Suppose they're real then. Do you know how these demons are made?"

Lavi rubs at the spot sorely. "Wait, they're made?"

"It's what the first apostle of Noah does."

Lavi looks up.

Bookman picks up the copy of the Old Testament lying on the table between them. "Deak, after people die, what do their loved ones mourn for?"

It's unusual for Bookman to be this indirect, especially throughout an entire lesson. Lavi treads cautiously. He's beginning to see the pieces fall together, but he never imagined it to break apart in the same instant. "Resurrection."

"And what did I just say about resurrection?"

The sinking feeling is closing in now. "That it's impure, but... it's something that happens in this world."

Bookman is grim. "Deak," he says, "I'm going to tell you something you're not going to want to hear."

Blinks slow.

"The first apostle of Noah. We'll refer to him as the 'Millennium Earl'. When the Earl sees people mourning over the deaths of loved ones, he comes down and solicits them with an offer they can't refuse."

Lavi has a pretty good idea of where this is going now. He presses a hand at his temples. It's drowning in slow motion now, and there's no going back.

Bookman is calm, and precise, too. He continues on, "He shows them a framework of a special skeleton, tells them that all that's needed for revival is the dead soul, and coaxes them to cry out their beloved's name to draw out the soul."

"And wait, lemme guess," Lavi finishes, his eyes fixed dry on the Bible in Bookman's hand, "and when they call out the names of the ones they want to resurrect, an 'akuma' is born instead. A demon. Right?"

Bookman pauses only shortly. "Yes."

"You don't have to say anymore."

* * *

><p>Elaine pauses. "What do you mean by 'man-made demons'?"<p>

He goes on another tangent, kind of. All his thoughts are muddled and he can't really think straight right now, and that was really just too fucked-up to hear. Maybe it had been a bad idea to just leave in the middle of a conversation like that, but it's already too late to be thinking stuff like that. A lot of stuff still doesn't match up, actually. He'll need to find Bookman again later, he supposes bitterly. "So apparently, you can even make stuff like that nowadays. Damn."

She considers him for a while. "You're not making sense at all."

He scratches at the back of his head. "Don't I know it."

Concern. "No, seriously. Are you okay? You're... you're shaking."

"What makes people believe so much?"

She ignores him. "Hey, what do you mean by 'man-made demons'? What's bothering you? Or well, what happened?"

"You said it was 'cause God's listening, right? But what if He's not? What if He's not listening, not ever? What if there are a lot of prayers He never gets to and suffering goes around anyway?"

A long pause. "What do you mean?"

He presses a hand to his cheek. "Ah, shit," Lavi says, "that was pretty out of line. Sorry."

"It's fine. But what happened?"

"I wouldn't worry about it." He looks up and his mouth tips up in a half-assed attempt at a smile. "Wanna hear a story?"

She eyes him for a little longer. "Okay, sure," she says a little uncertainly. "If you want to tell it that badly."

He gestures. "Okay so, once," he starts, "There was this couple. They met, talked, fell in love, the whole shebang, you know? They've known each other for a while and after a while, they decided to get married."

Elaine looks at him a little skeptically. "That's not a very good story."

"Hey, don't be so impatient." He closes his eyes. "The story actually starts here, you know."

She waits.

"So they're engaged now and it's all rainbows and butterflies. They're on, like, a love high. Point is, they're happy. The thing was, though, they both know how long this won't last."

"Why?"

"Hold on, I'm getting to it." He shades his eyes from the warning sun. "See, the thing is, the guy's dying already. Dying slow. He's been sick as hell for as long as he's lived, and, day by day, he can feel himself slipping closer and closer to the edge."

"And the girl?"

"Well, she knows it too, right? I guess you could say that her love for him runs so deep that all she wanted to do was hold his hand and stay by his side till the very end."

The sun slants orange.

"Well, his end comes."

He pauses and thinks for a bit.

"It hadn't been easy, of course. Hell, the few days after were probably the shittiest days of her life, 'cause it isn't an easy thing to do. It isn't easy to lose the person you'd fell in love with."

Cuts red.

"His funeral comes. There's scores and scores of all his closest friends and relatives there. Everyone's wearing black, mourning, praying, and even days after the reception's over and everything's done and buried, she's still there at his grave every day after. And she's crying."

She's silent now. He pauses for a bit again.

"And she's thinking, why did this happen? Why to him? Was there a way to save him? Was there something she coulda done to help him?"

The next part is difficult.

"Turns out, there was. See, there was somebody listening to her cry this time. It's this guy she's never seen before. He comes up to her, and makes this offer. This really, really fantastic offer. He says, 'You've lost someone dear to you, haven't you? See, I'm a sorcerer. I can help. If you call out the name of the one you've lost, I can find his soul and revive him.' Honest, it probably felt like something like cutting a deal with God, or something."

"And then?"

"And so she takes him up on it. She thinks of him so hard that her heart constricts and it's like her lungs don't function right anymore. She musters enough strength to call out her late husband's name, 'cause it's not like she had anything to lose, yeah?"

He breaks off. He really can't say the rest. He really doesn't have it in him anymore. Not now.

Elaine hazards a guess after a while. "I'm guessing this doesn't end with a happily ever after, huh?"

That hadn't been the response he'd been expecting. "What makes you say that?"

"I dunno," she shrugs. "Your tone?"

"Well," he grins real casual-like, "it actually does, so you're wrong. So let's see, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, the guy was revived. The two see each other again."

He leaves the rest up for the sky to tell.

"Oh. That's it then?" Elaine considers it for a while. "That's not such a bad story then, I guess. Actually, that's a pretty nice ending."

"Hey," he does his best to sound suitably insulted. "Were you expecting my story to be really depressing or something?"

"Well—kind of."

"Well," he pretends not to hear that too, "I guess that's what you'd call getting a second shot at life, huh? What a dream."

"I guess."

They settle in a comfortable silence.

Elaine breaks it again, hesitantly. "Hey—"

And stops short.

He looks up lazily. "What's up?"

"What was the thing with the 'man-made demons' then? I mean from before."

What he had originally meant to ask.

_Would you believe me if I said they existed? That people create them? That people _become_ them?_

He doesn't have the heart to do it anymore.

He waves it off breezily. "Oh, it's just another story I heard earlier today before I came here. A little creepy, actually. I wouldn't worry about it, though. Honest."

She takes his hint. "Oh."

Another silence passes before the bells toll, signaling the next hour.

Elaine gets up. "Well, this is me for today. I probably should go now, so..."

He yawns. "Yeah, sure, go ahead."

"But for the record," Elaine says and gestures as she moves, "your question from earlier about why people believe and all? Well, there's always going to be suffering. No one ever promised a fair or easy life. Things'll look up again if you just keep your end of the deal."

"And what's that?" He calls out.

She waves her pinky finger in the air and looks back, mouth curved soft.

He recognizes the gesture.

And that promise, too.

_Live._

* * *

><p>Bookman glances back only once before it's time. "Are you ready, Lavi?"<p>

Lavi grins in a way that probably shows off a bit too much teeth. "As much as I'll ever be, gramps."

Bookman arches an eyebrow. "I'm not sure if that was supposed to be reassuring or not."

Lavi scratches his head. "Ah, that's kind of uncalled for." He lazily swings the Order's uniform briefcase over his shoulder. "Well, let's get going then, yeah? We gotta carry out what generations of Bookmen have been working at, right?"

One week.

It's already been one week since Bookman had reminded him about the Noah again. About the people with stigmata cut across their foreheads, about the people who readily associate themselves with inhuman things like akuma. He isn't even sure if he should call them people. They are only half-human, if anything.

Just thinking about them is kind of sickening.

The man at the table looks normal enough, he supposes. Combed hair, neat collar, polished square toe shoes—like every other working man walking around the street. All in all, he looks like someone easily forgettable. Replaceable.

Bookman takes a seat from across, and his words are bone warm. "Thanks for meeting with us."

"Of course," the man says. "It's my pleasure to help out the Order in whatever way I can." He picks up his cup of tea and his mouth tips into an off smile. "So how can I help?"

Bookman doesn't beat around the bush, as expected. "The Noah clan," he says, "anything you know about them would be helpful to us."

The man laughs heartily. "Well, see, the thing is—"

Mechanics click.

"—you're not nearly worthy enough to know about the Noah family."

Unzipped skin peeled raw. Gunmetal finish. Molecular rearrangement. Expansion. Distortion.

It's the ugliest thing he's ever seen, and he doesn't even need to look twice to know that this thing is an akuma.

He doesn't even need to look twice to find himself on the other side of the barrel of a gun.

Fixation.

He's been here once before.

Bookman's voice is sharp and frantic, and panicked, too. "Lavi!"

And can't hear a thing of it, except for the cries of a whole crammed collection of souls screaming it out all at once. He's been on this side of living before, and it'd killed him. And now, it's.

_It's living like this._

The akuma is properly disfigured now. It moves towards the two of them. Lavi instinctively takes a step back from the once human.

"You guys are Exorcists, aren't you? There's no way in hell I'll betray my idols for pitiful bastards like you." The thing sneers, "I'm gonna blow the both of you up!"

_It's 'cause you live like this you know, 'cause you live like there's no such thing as time, that you don't know how to start or stop anymore._

Comes closer.

Another step back.

_You gotta do this properly._

"Do you really think," the akuma jeers at him again, dark matter convulsing purple, "that it's your stupid life that matters?"

Stops.

Another click.

The needles of Bookman's Heaven Compass glint brightly under the sun. The light sears white, there's a high-pitched shriek of something that doesn't belong to a human, and all he can do is transverse through time, subconsciously recording everything he's seeing.

The akuma is seething. "You fucking bastard—"

Bookman again, and this time the plea in his voice is scratched hoarse. "Lavi!"

There's desperation hollowed thick on all sides now.

_Don't die like this._

Lavi blinks.

And then the fire from the Innocence of his hammer explodes.

* * *

><p>Later, he goes back to their spot again, if you could call it that. It isn't a definite place per se, but more like a comfortable, steadfast unspoken agreement. It's a little like acknowledging and agreeing how wholly transient everything is nowadays. And besides, it's hard to get lost in a town like this. So the first few times, it had been a particular table outside a café. There had been random street run-ins too, and he'd moved to another table outside a different café.<p>

And now, he supposes, a bench shaded under the trees at the local park.

There's no knowing who will come first or whether either of them will ever meet, but he takes his chances. There are certain apologies to be made and certain mistakes to properly clean up too, and it's not like he's naïve enough to have expectations.

The sun is already dipping vermilion.

Sinks violent.

He double-checks.

She's crying.

This isn't his thing.

This really, really isn't his thing. But he'd never imagined it to be hers, either, and he's too close, and it's too late to turn back now. "Hey—what's wrong?"

She presses a hand at her temples. Hiccups.

He scratches at the back of his head uncomfortably. "Um, should I go?" And then realizes how crass that sounds. He cringes. "I mean, if you want me to, or—"

She shakes her head. "No, no—you can stay. Actually, please. Stay. Just, I mean."

He hesitates before sitting down in the space next to her, and it's all in silence.

It takes her a while. But when everything's dried, she hoarsely talks about time, of all things. And he sits and listens, because he's feeling particularly pathetic and this is the best he can do today.

"You know what sucks?" Elaine says, wipes at her face, "Watching something and knowing that it's going to end."

He gets that. "Yeah," he agrees. And commiserates a bit when the words actually sink in. "That does."

She's mumbling to herself, kind of. "The doctor said that it should've been okay for another year..."

He's not sure if he should respond, if it's his place to, but, "The doctor?"

"Yeah... well, I guess it doesn't really matter." She looks up, kind of. "My mom's sick."

Now he _really_ doesn't know what to say. "Oh."

"Or more like, she's been sick for a while. Getting worse by the day, actually. The doc told us to... well, prepare, I guess."

This time, he doesn't even say anything.

This sort of thing isn't new to him. People die all the time, really. Hell, they're in the midst of another war right now, and there's no escaping that, ever. The subtext to all the rinse, repeat newspaper headlines lately even indicate that this town itself is on the verge of splintering all by itself.

Elaine blinks, like she's remembering herself and where she is. "Oh, you don't have to feel sorry for me. Uh, you don't have to say anything." She scratches her head sheepishly. "Sorry for loading my problems on you like that." Sheepish. "I probably shouldn't have said anything."

He blinks too, before grinning and putting a hand on her head, and patting it. "It's fine." Yawns. "It's probably not a good idea to bottle it up, 'cause that might have a worse outcome, yeah?"

She lets him. "I guess."

Another silence.

He glances at the sky. The sun's already surrendered to the night. "Shouldn't you be going home soon, though? It's probably not a good idea for a girl to walk around at night, you know."

"To be honest, the point was to get away from home for a while."

"Oh, right."

They just sit for a while again.

After a while, Elaine speaks up again. Trembling. "You know what's strange though? My mom. When I was younger, and when she was healthier, my mom used to read me all these stories, you know. Stories that don't actually end with happily-ever-after. She could've told me the nice fairytale stuff that all the other kids heard, but instead, all I ever got to see was... well, reality. And, and even my dad—"

Breaks off.

"Yeah?"

Buries her face. "Never mind, actually."

Another pause.

This time, he takes a shot at optimism, kind of. He tries to keep his tone on the upbeat side of things, even though the subject matter is bleak by nature. "That's not that bad a thing though, right? I mean, then that means you won't be broken by some illusion later on."

"Illusion?"

"Yeah. Means you got to start off strong and learn more about yourself early on, yeah? And you said it yourself, didn't you? 'Things'll look up again', right? 'Sides," he winks, "I'm right here, so things can't be that bad."

She breathes out a short, shaky laugh and brushes his comments away. "Well, thanks for trying, I guess."

He grins offhandedly, "Well, at least I tried."

"Yeah." She backtracks a bit, attempts to keep the conversation more buoyant too. Her voice is still shaky, but it's stronger, somewhat. "You remember what I said from before? You have a pretty good memory."

He thumbs at his head wrap and goes along with it. People cope in different ways. "Yeah, I get that a lot actually."

Another pause, another tangent.

"You'll pull through," he says suddenly and pats her head again.

It's unexpected and both of them know it. "Thanks," she says.

The stars.

They're burning.

She looks up at them. "I guess we really only ever get to live on the short side of forever."

Lavi blinks. It's a weirdly suitable phrase. "The short side of forever?"

They're both looking up at the stretch of night sky now. It's practically just waiting to be disrupted, and they can both see it if they so choose to. "It's something my mom used to say. The more I think about it though, the more sense it makes." Short and bitter. "I mean, is there anything that'll ever beat time? Anything?"

He closes his eyes briefly. This hadn't been something he'd ever imagined her to say. He couldn't have foreseen it coming, but, sometimes, that's just what living does to people. And there's nothing that can be done about that.

So they sit and watch, and watch. The stars are falling one at a time. It's something like a domino effect. They both watch in silence for a while until the last one limps and burns spectacularly.

He can feel her shaking, starting to cry again.

After a while, he hesitates, puts an arm around her head.

The rest is despair.

"There's a time limit, Deak," she says, eyes burning with liquid salt, and closes them wide shut. "A time limit. Do you think there's anything we can do about it other than stupidly watch it pass by?"

* * *

><p>A few moments pass before either of them speaks up. Before either of them are calm enough and in control again.<p>

Bookman watches Lavi. "Do you understand what happened just now?"

Lavi opens his eye wearily. "Yeah." Short, uncertain, and honest. Human. The words are still hissing straight down his spine. "I—I think so."

Bookman pauses.

Lavi looks up. "What's up, gramps?"

"No, never mind."

Lavi closes his eyes briefly.

Bookman is the perfect bystander, already hard carved by the years, as expected. "We'll just observe from here," Bookman says noncommittally and ambiguously. There's that faint glimmer in his eyes again—that glimmer that comes from seeing something new for the first time. "Don't lose sight, Lavi."


	6. Indigo episodes

The next day.

As expected, Bookman appears to be unfazed and far too calm about the whole thing. But something in the air is off. The sensation is thoroughly discomfiting, and as it turns out, Lavi's precautions are all appropriately valid. After breakfast, when they're in their room packing their bags, Bookman stops and pauses, and changes his mind too. The look in his eyes is perfectly crystal in meaning—there are things to be discussed. Like what really happened yesterday, with that incident with the akuma, and more. And the more delicate, implicit things that neither of them will want to acknowledge.

Lavi takes a seat on the bed. This one, he imagines, will be difficult.

A moment passes before either of them makes the first move. Or any move at all.

Lavi's right.

This is difficult.

Today, Bookman is more honest and less Bookman than Lavi's ever seen him. Completely out of character is probably the best way to put it. That should have been his first sign.

Even Bookman is actually really bothered by this.

"I never thought," Bookman speaks first, and slow, and his short laugh is some mix between fascinated, disappointed, and grim. And honest. He's caught on more than Lavi had bargained for, but that's Bookman for you. "I never expected for things to turn out this way. The boy I first met... I never imagined you would be like this. To see you fall victim to time."

Lavi can't even crack a joke this time. "It's not like I want this either."

Bookman's tone is understanding. Distanced, but understanding. "I know."

"And..." He changes his mind. He can't confess to anymore. "Never mind."

Bookman pauses. "It can't be helped, can it?"

"Yeah." Pauses, hesitates, and not sure at all if he actually wants to know the answer to this one, "So what happens now?"

Bookman's words are closed, and decisive, too. Careful and measured. Bookman. "This is something you have to deal with all on your own."

"But—"

"You're not a child anymore," says Bookman in a way that's neither comforting nor severe. It just is. "You have to decide for yourself on how you want to deal with it. There's a time limit though, and you'll have to ask yourself too, Lavi. How much will you endure? How much can you give up?" A short pause. "Or can you even?"

The questions throb. Bookman has a way of cutting the cards one by one, but it's the next part that really kills.

"You're not giving your all right now, Lavi."

This isn't even disappointment. Disappointment would have been better. Disappointment would have been so much easier to work with, easier to handle, easier to fix. But this.

It's.

"Do you still really want to be a Bookman?"

* * *

><p>The taste of summer is really strong this year.<p>

"So it's been decided," he says cheerfully.

Elaine idly turns the brim of her hat, shades her face from the sun's heat. "Yeah?"

"I'm really gonna live the hell out of this summer."

A pause. She gives him a weird look before laughing, "Um yeah, that's usually a good thing to do."

He yawns lazily. "Well, I finally made up my mind, so."

Neutral, as usual. "Well... that's good then, I guess."

He stops and considers for a while. The clouds are lazy today. In the past two weeks, the daily news has been fairly mild. Bookman says that's usually the first sign.

"Oh yeah," Elaine speaks up. "You and your grandpa are traveling right? You guys have been here for a while, but is there anything that you want to particularly see here? I could show you around, and you know."

He waves it off breezily. "Don't worry about it, I've already seen it all."

"Really?"

"Yep."

A beat passes before she starts at a different angle. "Hey," she starts. And stops.

"What's up?" He says sleepily.

"What do you usually do around here anyway?"

"Hm?"

"'Cause, I mean, you don't go to school... and you don't seem like you're working either. So what were you doing all these days?"

"Oh, you know, just a little bit of this and that. Guess that's what being an apprentice is all about, huh?" He evades that point too. Explaining the whole Bookman thing is a little complicated, and he'd rather not get into it right now if he can help it. "You know," his mouth splits into an easy grin. "I once thought about being an artist. Or like an artisan. Something of the sort."

"And?"

"No good. Gramps said it just wasn't meant to be." He stretches and looks a little wistful. "It's kind of fun though. Sculpting and stuff like that."

"Yeah? What did you make?"

He reflects for a while and decides to tag Seral for just a moment. "I used to have this thing for masks," he admits breezily.

"Masks?"

"Yeah. I thought the whole thing was kind of cool. You know, with how they can look human but you know they're not." He pauses. "Okay actually, that didn't come out right. It's a little hard to explain."

She laughs. "No, I think I can kind of get your point."

"Yeah?" He gestures. "I was still no good at it, though."

"Well, you still have the rest of your life ahead of you."

That's one way of looking at it, he supposes. "Yeah." He looks up at those blue brushed indigo skies. "Yeah."

* * *

><p>Bookman doesn't say much else after that. Instead, Bookman nonchalantly leaves the question hanging unanswered in the air, which, Lavi later decides, kind of figures. That much is to be expected.<p>

Bookman brings it up again after they finish eating dinner that same day. He does it in a way that Lavi doesn't see coming. It is human and warm and comforting and Lavi doesn't know what to do anymore.

He had never imagined he would actually need Bookman to be Bookman.

Bookman starts, "I was in your situation once, at one point in my life too, you know."

"Situation?"

"People don't just choose to be Bookman, Lavi."

Lavi blinks.

"They are chosen." Bookman picks up his cup of after-dinner tea, and sips. "I've said it before and you probably remember, but Bookmen have a duty they need to carry out. Not just anyone can decide to be a Bookman. Bookmen are handpicked."

'Cause duty is duty, no matter how you choose to cut it up.

"Bookmen carry a burden that cannot be compared to any other. And you know what that is."

To see and record the war for all of eternity.

"Bookmen live alongside their records. If you are what you eat, then Bookmen are what they record."

There are years, of course, where little happens. By the same logic, there are also years where it feels like the world is on the brink of ending. There could have been so much more to live for, but the trick is getting that lucky chance to do so.

Bookman doesn't actually say any of that, of course, but all of that is already implied in his own records.

Bookman does say this, though. "History had never meant to be objective, Lavi. History is always subjective and is never written by the losing side. History doesn't lament as much as it glorifies. The biggest problem, probably, is that Bookmen realize this more than anyone else."

Bookman speaks with precision.

"You're slipping, Lavi."

In and out.

In and out of consciousness. In and out of the present and in and out of reality itself. He's already suspended in this dimension where all of time and space exist simultaneously. It's that dealer again, that card game, that non-interference, that knowing, that living like this, and all the mournful _it's already too late_ that no one ever explicitly says.

It's all in his head and everything is just fucked up. Lavi doesn't even need Bookman to point this one out for him.

Bookman does anyway. It is not quite pity yet. "You're watching the past, Lavi," Bookman says, and this time, he knows this is just crammed full with touches of despair, "You've forgotten how to look forward."

A long moment passes before Lavi can speak.

"I know," is all he can bring himself to say.

* * *

><p>She never brings up her conversation from that one night, and it isn't his style to ask about the things that are out of his place to mention, so the only thing he can do is warily watch for the signs of distress.<p>

Sometimes, they're there. They are small, subtle hints—written in the subtext to her words, or pushed in the bags under her eyes, or folded in the press of her clothes. Small things, but still there, he notices.

Sometimes, she catches him watching.

She scratches at the back of her neck. "What?"

He blinks. "Nothing," he says and invents, "I was just thinking that your hair looks good today."

This time she blinks before laughing. "You're such a bad liar."

"Hey," he interjects, "at least I tried."

The words are familiar to both of them. At least, he's mentally rewinding to that night again, and her crying.

"Yeah, I guess," she accepts, laughing. "Though lying's not really something you should get any points for." A pause. "But what were you really thinking about?"

He stretches his arms. "Rather not say. Nothing much, really." Pauses. "But well, it does look good today, though," he tacks on at the end just because it feels right to do.

She grins again and drops the subject. The way her mouth tips up reminds him of that one time she'd said that He's always there listening. "Well thanks, I guess."

He yawns. "It's what I do."

The next night, he notices. The stars are done burning.

* * *

><p>Daybreak.<p>

Bookman takes this one solo.

Before Bookman leaves to record, all he says is that they'll be leaving back for the Order again in a week. Seven days, Bookman allows, is how long he'll give Lavi to find himself.

"It will not be easy," warns Bookman.

And leaves it at that. It's probably better for the both of them.

And it's not like it's exactly surprising, he supposes, given everything that's been going on with him lately, but it still hurts more than it should have. Maybe he's being too sensitive to the whole thing—hell, he _knows_ he is actually, but still, it wouldn't have hurt Bookman to sugarcoat his words every once in a while.

He should know better than this. He thinks about the whole thing again while the sun peeks over the tops of the mountains. There's not much else to do at this hour.

"Hey, gramps."

He only speaks up once he knows that the current Bookman is completely out of range—too far away to hear a thing. He speaks in a language that is foreign and already long buried, and it's satisfying to exist – even for just this moment – in a realm where no one else can interfere. Because, after all, this is a story told in reverse. A confession of the most impossible desperation etched on both sides of the same coin that he'll never want to flip.

"You know, I've always wanted to be a Bookman. All my life, honest. Now that I think about it, it's the only thing I wanted that badly."

He thinks about it for a while. He's never tried this before. But he's feeling a lot wordier than he'd thought he would, and a lot more pathetic than he's felt in a while too.

"Actually, I think you probably know that better than anyone, huh?" He says sheepishly, "Since I stuck through all that for all these years and all." Laughs shortly. "But anyway, that's not really the point here, I guess."

A long silence passes.

There are actually people up and about now. He watches them from the far edge of the town, like the outsider he's always been. He leans against the wall of an abandoned, dilapidated building and watches the early morning working class get up and set up their stalls and open their shops.

The streets are empty, but they still speak of the terror of the akuma's attack from the day before. Their worn, stained surfaces discuss a lot of other things too, like common history and current political tension and hope already torn asunder. They remind him a bit of Seral's days.

He thinks about Seral next. Seral, whose time had been up a while ago. Seral, who moves on to the next identity with an appropriate amount of ease. Seral, who had gotten punched straight in the face for the first time in his life and who had easily accomplished the _thing he's never done before_ goal in that lifetime without any problems, hesitations, or delays.

Seral who lets go the way he's supposed to.

The next part is more for him than anyone else.

"So you were saying that I gotta endure through it and give things up. That I gotta take of this myself, otherwise it'd be meaningless, I know. But..."

_Do you still really want to be a Bookman?_

He looks at Deak now, another younger version of himself from not too long ago on the other side of that elusive, simultaneous mirror, and all that's there is that feeling of the cold glass he can't break through. Now he knows exactly how this won't end, but that doesn't really change a thing. Hell, time and space and even whole dimensions don't matter anymore.

A Bookman's proper role is to watch, and record.

Bookman's words are cutting him hollow again. They crawl in all the nooks and corners of his vertebrae, and their teeth sink in deep. _You're not giving your all right now, Lavi._

He thumbs at his head wrap until the ethnic cloth slips down over his eyes and falls straight down to the base where neck and shoulder meet. He looks through the mirror of his eye.

The sun's burning.

_You have a choice to make, Lavi._

_Deak._

He's watching Deak. And Elaine, too.

The confession is next. He closes his eyes for this one.

"A choice, huh. The thing is, I don't think it's really mine to make anymore."

* * *

><p>The next day is the brilliant kind of day. The kind with impossibly blue skies and not a whole lot else. It's that kind of lazy day where you want to take the kids out to the park, or just sit around and do absolutely nothing at all.<p>

Even Bookman seems to be accepting the weather in his own way, somewhat. Well, maybe not. It's probably just coincidence, he decides.

"We'll end here for now, Deak," Bookman says.

Lavi blinks somewhat doubtfully. That makes the day's work a lot shorter than usual. "Really? What're you going to do now then?"

"There are things to be done."

He's still doubtful. "Well if you say so, gramps."

Bookman waves him off, and he takes that as his cue to leave the room. But as Lavi passes by Bookman, Bookman says quietly, "You should get ready to uproot yourself."

Outside, he takes another copy of the morning newspaper just to make sure and scans through all the headlines again. Bookman might be right. It might be time to leave soon.

It hasn't even been long, so Bookman's words are ringing in his ears, now etched in his memory for all of forever. _You should get ready to uproot yourself_. He takes another round around those buildings, and these streets, and the park too. It can't hurt.

Now, he can count the steps it takes to get from one place to another, can figure out when the shops open, can walk around the streets with the ease of a native. Maybe Bookman's right about the whole uprooting thing, even though gramps meant it in a different context. He's been getting a bit attached to this place.

After long enough, he figures she's not around today. That's what happens when you leave things up to chance.

So he goes back to the park, lies on the grass and soaks up the last of the sun rays, and the sky air, and everything else in between in the troposphere too.

Indigo episodes.

That's what these days feel like, he finally decides. What they are, actually.

The lull. The stillness, the silence, the standstill. The comfort. The carefree hours, and living in the easy. The kind of thing that doesn't last for long. That proverbial calm before the storm.

He can't see into the future – can only delve and sink in the past and present – but he can feel it coming closer with every tick-tock second, whatever it even is. Experience has taught him that newspapers can lie—they lie all the time really, and it's been sixteen years already, and his intuition is usually spot-on about this kind of stuff. And these headlines already speak for themselves.

He thinks of his first time here in this quaint little town, and his mouth tips up wryly.

A lot of it starts off all wrong, he has to admit. Completely wrong.

He had a plan – a whole routine, really – that he follows systematically with every entrance. After all, it's his and Bookman's agreed policy to keep things easy and breezy, no matter where they are or what situation they're in.

It's the best way for Bookmen to survive in this hell of a world. So he had a whole scripted plan going on, and he'd planned to just mind his own business and watch from afar as always. Keep the interactions down to a minimum too, since Bookman had been pretty explicit in telling him what he thought about this place's future.

Only, he'd gotten pity food and a supposed-to-be stranger who cared too much about too much. And a hell lot more delicate conversations than he'd ever bargained for. People, he reflects, can really be weak things.

He closes his eyes, whistles to himself, and wages his bets now. The sun beats down at him. It's blistering, and he considers how he should clean things up this time, 'cause all the streets are telling all the signs of a town on the verge of splintering.

He tries to picture what it might look like this time.

Instead, he sees the shadow of her silhouette pressed soft on the inside of his eyelids, blinks hard, and comes across a realization. He blinks again.

He holds his hand up out to the sky, looks at its contorted shape under that warning sun, and this time the smile set on his lips is a forced one. He laughs a short laugh before putting his hand over his closed eyes and seeing that familiar silhouette again. "So that's how it is."

This will probably be difficult, he supposes.

"I guess it can't really be helped," he muses to himself pseudo-cheerfully and reflects on it all, and doesn't really know what to make of it or what to do with it even. "Didn't think it'd turn out like that."


	7. Time limit

Day two. Bookman got it right, that's for sure.

Watching the next few parts will be difficult.

* * *

><p>It's the simple things. When it comes down to it, it's always the simple things that really ever matter, that really ever stand out in all of space and time. When you've lived like this all your life, you realize you really only ever want to remember the stupid, little things.<p>

Elaine calls it living. In retrospect though, of course she would.

Sometimes, conversation is enough. Sometimes, conversation is all it takes.

He'd never imagined he'd be one of _those_ kinds of overbearing, god-awful cheesy people though, but what the hell. He takes it all in stride anyway, like he's done all his life. This time, it isn't the concept that's new, but the feeling.

And that's kind of.

"Hey, where are you staying at anyway?"

He lazily opens an eye. "Hm?"

"I mean, since you and your grandpa are just visiting. But you guys have been for a while... not that that's a bad thing or anything, of course. Have you guys just been staying at the inn this whole time?"

It seems fairly obvious to him. "Well, yeah."

"Oh."

"Why?"

She hesitates a bit this time. "Well... doesn't it get kind of lonely sometimes? If it's just the two of you there and all, I mean."

He'd never thought about it that way. For Bookmen, work is just meant to be done in the most efficient manner possible. "Not really."

"Hey Deak, do you guys want to come over for dinner sometime?" And then she describes where she lives. He recognizes the place.

He balks at just thinking of what Bookman's reaction to something like this would be. "No, it's alright, honest, we won't be here for much longer anyway," he says hastily. "That's what gramps said. Oh, and gramps doesn't really like those kinds of social gatherings anyway."

A pause, "Really?"

_Oh_. He scratches at the back of his head. "Yeah, seems like our work here is done."

"Oh."

A slight silence, before he breaks it cheerfully. "Well, thanks for the consideration anyway."

"So is this what you've decided to do? Taking after your grandpa, I mean."

She's referencing a previous conversation now. He knows the one she's talking about. She's talking about how he said he'd once considered to be an artisan.

His smile is languid. He should probably take more pride in this. "Yeah. It's what I decided."

"Do you like it?"

He pauses. "For the most part."

"Well, that's good." She pauses and thinks about it for a bit. "I mean, I think doing things only matters if you're doing what you want to. And yeah, I know this is going to sound really childish and naive and all but we all have our dreams, right?"

He blinks. He hadn't been thinking anything like this. "Dreams?"

"The things we want to happen. The things we'd chase after to make true."

_The things we want to happen_. She's right. The idea really is childish and naïve. "But they're called dreams because they won't happen," he points out.

A short silence, and then she smiles. "You're probably right," she admits sheepishly. "But I still think it's good to have one. So that you have something you can turn to when you need it."

"Huh. Sounds like you already have something in mind. So what's your dream then?"

She considers for a bit. "One I probably wouldn't mind trading my life for if it could come true," she answers a little vaguely.

He yawns. "You know how suicidal that sounded just now?"

"I don't want to hear that from someone who actually is."

"Well then."

"No, I'm just kidding, but..." She sits up straighter now. "But well, if it means that I've lived the truest way I could, then I don't mind, I think. I mean, it's all in the plan in the end though, you know? I trust His plan for me."

She's referring to God's plan now, he realizes. Well, there is a plan, that's for sure. A plan that he and his ancestors have watched for just short of eternity, a plan that none of them will ever comprehend. He closes his eyes again. "I guess."

* * *

><p>A few days after.<p>

He hesitates.

She's not crying yet, but it comes pretty close. He's still young and naive and he still doesn't really know how to handle these kinds of situations. He scratches at the back of his head uncomfortably.

"Hey, you alright?" He asks before realizing how stupid that sounds. Of course she isn't.

Her eyes are almost brimming with clear liquid. It's like that split-second before you realize the whole world's falling apart and there's nothing much you can do about it. She's open about stuff like that, but there's still a subtle note of bitterness, "Well, not really."

He's not sure what to say. "Oh."

"My family's kind of falling apart," Elaine half-tries.

Now he really doesn't know what to say.

She carries on, pulling at the weeds. "So you know how I said my mom wasn't getting any better? Well, when you don't get better, that just means that you're getting worse, huh?"

"Things have to get worse before they get better," he says unhelpfully before realizing that this is also probably not the right thing to say.

She breaks from her bitterness for a bit and looks up doubtfully. "I can't tell if that's supposed to be reassuring or not."

"It is," he reasserts, mouth loped easy. "Well, kind of. I mean, if you think about it, it makes sense. Really."

She resorts to pulling at the grass again. "Well, I hope that's true then."

They scatter in bits of dirt.

A pause, before she picks at it again. "That things will get better again. I mean, well yeah, of course they will, but it's just kind of hard to see from here, you know? When everything is going all wrong."

He can relate to that easily enough. The first part, anyway. "Yeah, I get what you mean." He actually doesn't know much about things getting better, but it's enough for now.

"Yeah..." her voice trails off for a bit. Her smile is half-assed. It's the first time he's seen it like this. "Let's hope you're right."

"Yeah," is all he can manage to bring out. He grins toothily, reassures, "'Course it will. Come on, have a little more faith."

Faith.

And it's not like he's known her for a long time or anything – just a span of weeks on weeks – but he's never seen her like this before.

He'd never imagined he'd have to.

* * *

><p>Bookman comes back on the third day.<p>

Lavi greets Bookman with an easy, amicable smile when the elder finally comes back from the short trip. When Bookman had left to record and given him a seven-day limit to get his act back together. "How'd it go?"

Bookman is mild. "The usual," he says. "I'd imagine you probably have a good idea of what transpired."

A beat, "Yeah, probably."

Bookman pulls out a chair, takes a seat. "What about things on your side?"

Bookman is watching him. Bookman is back to being Bookman, and the thought is probably more comforting than it should be. It is enough to remind him where he should stand, and there's nothing out there scarier than the uncertainty of not knowing.

But this still takes considerable precaution. "My side?"

Bookman is articulate as ever with his language. "Your problem," he indicates blandly. "Are you sorting it out?"

"Something like that."

Bookman is serious. "Lavi."

Lavi blinks before the corners of his mouth tip up in another easy and hopefully reassuring grin. "Well, it's moving at its own pace, somewhat," he admits. "But I gotcha, gramps. I'm working on it. Honest. I won't mess up from here."

Bookman is still very skeptical, he notices. Bookman is a discreet person by nature, but Lavi can tell. He's lived long enough for at least this.

"How's your eye?" Bookman finally asks next.

Lavi touches that cloth of eye patch on instinct. The rest is short, and automatic. "It's fine." Or well, he thinks it is, anyway.

There is a long silence before Bookman says anything else. Bookman closes his eyes, and Lavi can see the definition of wrinkles folded flat across the hardened planes of his face. This is a face that has already seen through both illusion and reality, both truth and pretense. He might have been there before too.

Bookman doesn't betray any indication of empathy when he speaks up again. He folds his hands together. "As a Bookman, you have the ability to record—to remember everything you've ever seen. It's what you do."

Lavi blinks. This is stuff he already more than knows, and both of them know that. "Um, yeah."

"Your right eye," Bookman indicates next, and Lavi stills. "You're still watching the past right now, aren't you?"

A pause. "Yeah," he confesses.

Bookman closes his eyes for a short moment. "How far back are you right now?"

Another moment of hesitation. "Not that far. Only a few months from today."

"So it's Deak."

"Yeah."

Bookman doesn't explicitly question this any further. It isn't Bookman's style to anyway, and that's one thing that Lavi can be grateful for. He can't pull off a confession like this to Bookman. This is one of those things he'd rather keep to himself for all of forever than to have to admit to.

There is a glimmer in Bookman's eyes again. "You've left something unresolved," he says, and it is not quite a question or an accusation, even though there is a little of both in his words.

"Yeah," he admits after a while. This goes entirely against Bookman's principles. "Kind of."

Bookman just tips his head down slightly in acknowledgment. "Then I suppose you are to watch until past and present time meet," he muses.

He'd already figured as much. "That's what I thought. But is there a way around—"

"The past is already recorded, Lavi," Bookman reminds.

Frustration seeps into his voice now. "So I just watch?"

"Yes." Another moment passes before Bookman speaks up again. Bookman pauses. "No."

Lavi blinks. "What?"

Bookman stands up from his seat with calm, fluid movements. "I don't know what you're seeing. Your records are your own." Bookman's words are careful. "But since this is happening like this, there will probably a point in time where the younger you—Deak, I assume—will want to rewrite."

Rewrite.

The word goes completely against all of the Bookmen principles—all of the rules that dictate history and allow records to be properly recorded and kept permanent for all of eternity. His mouth suddenly feels dry.

"And at that point, the present you might need to take action."

Bookman's tone is perfectly ambivalent, but the implication sinks in slow.

He's still too young for this.

Bookman closes his eyes and turns to leave the room. "There's something I'll need to check out," he says. "I'll be back before we head back to the Order."

"Wait, gramps." There is a hint of desperation hanging at the edges of the thread of his words now. This is just so—he's lost in all of space and time, and he waits until Bookman looks back before, "What—what do you think I should do?"

For a while, Bookman just looks his apprentice noncommittally. Or maybe there might have been pity. It doesn't even matter anymore. He can't even care about the present anymore, can't bring himself to consider this while all he can see is the past already long gone.

"I already told you," Bookman says, and this time there's a sense of finality loaded in the scheme of his syntax. There's a certain look in his eyes, one that is better left unsaid. This is another sort of test. "You have to decide for yourself."

* * *

><p>Day four, and Bookman's words aren't exactly helping. <em>You're watching the past, Lavi, and you've forgotten how to look forward.<em> He can practically see the metaphoric clocks counting down to the seconds now. The clock only turns one way, the counter way, and there's nothing he can do but watch his own recorded history scream it out right in front of him.

* * *

><p>So it goes.<p>

Of _course_ it happens like this.

* * *

><p>He really should know better than this after all this time, but what the hell. Just for one day, he thinks. It'll just be for one day, and then he'll go back to being the proper Bookman-in-training he's always aspired to be. And besides, Bookmen don't make many promises. And when they do, they don't make the ones they can't keep, he reasons. It'll be fine.<p>

Lavi pushes the thought aside and heads into the bakery. He's been in here a few times, so he whistles amiably and waves when he enters. "Hey," he says cheerfully.

The shopkeeper sighs in good humor when he recognizes him. "What is it this time, Deak?"

Lavi looks appropriately insulted. "Aw hey, what's with that tone?" He looks around the shop. "Anyway, I was hoping to buy some bread."

"Just one loaf, right?"

He reflects a bit and wonders if this had been the shop she'd went to that first time, when he'd been wandering on a still vague line between Seral and Deak. "Yeah, I'd guess so," he muses. "Yeah, actually, that sounds about right."

"Got it," the shopkeeper acknowledges while he sorts out the bread.

The smell of fresh loaves.

It really is warm, and comforting, too, he realizes.

He wonders what it had been he'd felt.

Because now, the feeling's changed.

The shopkeeper interrupts his train of thought jokingly. "Hey, don't go stealing in this good town. Pay up properly, Deak."

"Oh, right." Lavi fumbles around for some change. "Thanks!" He calls out when the bells chime again.

Bookman definitely won't approve of this.

It's probably a good thing that Bookman doesn't know, he considers. Well, hopefully he doesn't know about all this.

After all, _well, you looked like you need it, so here _is how it starts between him and her. It'd been so wholly whimsical and so unexpected too, and he'd never imagined that he'd ever return the favor. He pauses.

The gesture just feels appropriate, he decides. He's working by instinct today. Off the clock.

He makes it to the last intersection when he actually starts to recollect the whole relationship. Bookman had made himself pretty clear when he'd said that. _You should get ready to uproot yourself_. There's really only one way to look at a statement like that.

He'd been thinking about Seral. About how Seral had dealt with things – a punch straight in the face. Seral had gotten in his first fist fight, and it had been everything he'd never expected. It had been satisfying, a good solid end, and he had been able to become Deak.

The him now.

He closes his eyes.

Deak is different. Different, and inconsistent with the pattern he's supposed to be following.

He's realizing this slow. He walks the next two blocks in silence, bag of bread clutched in between his two lanky arms.

That bag of bread.

_Are you giving this 'cause you pity me or something?_

_I get the feeling you're about to kill yourself._

He'd really never ever imagined that he would attempt to comfort someone like this. The corners of his mouth tip up wryly.

It's kind of.

Mechanics click.

And blinks.

He stops walking and almost drops the bag of bread. His mouth feels dry, but his fingers—his motor neurons aren't cooperating properly. He tries to swallow too, but the only thing he can do is watch stupidly.

This.

This _thing_ with cannons contorted and protruding all over its body, and striped horns on its head, and black ink painted in thick stars over gunmetal eyelids, and stretches of flimsy human skin begging to be sutured together at the seams. Somehow, with a sinking feeling, he already has a notion of what this is supposed to be.

This, he thinks, is probably what Bookman had called an akuma. A demon. A killing machine.

His mouth feels dry. Bookman's words are spinning.

_He shows them a framework of a special skeleton, tells them that all that's needed for revival is the dead soul, and coaxes them to cry out their beloved's name to draw out the soul._

Bookman hadn't ever really described it physically, but he can just tell. Just looking at it, just breathing the same air it's standing in, just... just. It's nauseating. He puts a hand over his mouth.

This couldn't have once been human, but.

The thing's mouth is bleeding in black.

The boy in front of it is shaking. Screaming. Crying.

And.

And his own eyes. They faithfully record every second of it.

When it is all over, when all he can hear is his pulse in his numbed ears, he turns and runs away from all he knows. When he can't find his legs anymore, he can feel his lunch. His breakfast comes next.

* * *

><p>It isn't until much later when he remembers the bread again. But now, the loaf is already dry and hardened, and it'd probably be more of an insult to present to anyone at all. Even the pigeons deserve better than this half-assed attempt.<p>

The context has changed too, and all he feels now is a sense of the most terrific helplessness. He'd never imagined it to look like that. He's still shaking.

And now there's this too.

He presses a hand at his temples.

This is just too much at once.

Her real name is Madeline.

It's a little late in the game, but he finds out when he rereads the obituary section from the weekly paper. He'd just skimmed through it at first, because honestly after a while they just bleed together, but then he'd actually looked at the accompanying photograph of the woman and her family printed alongside the article. He had remembered it of course, but he hadn't given it thought. Now he knows why that article had felt wrong to read the first time.

The girl in the clipped family photograph.

He closes his eyes.

Margaret Wheeler had died four days ago. Margaret Wheeler had been married to Daniel Sather and had one child, Madeline Sather. The former Mrs. Sather had been a homemaker. After years of struggling and vague diagnoses and misdiagnoses, the mother had succumbed to death. Rest in peace.

He pauses, thinks about what he had seen just days before with a brush of wariness. And there's what Bookman had said when he'd told the elder about his first time seeing an akuma. Bookman had that same glimmer in his eyes again when he had said it.

Bookman had said, "It's beginning."

Lavi had just blinked. "What is?"

"We're about to record another war, Deak. A different war now."

"Different?"

"The war against akuma."

"Right."

Realities like these just aren't supposed to exist.

"Deak, I've been researching. It seems as though the Millennium Earl is moving more actively nowadays."

He'd left it at a nonchalant "Okay," but now.

But now.

She wouldn't though, right? He thinks about it again grimly. She actually might, and that's probably the truth of it.

He hesitates, glances back at the dry, crusted loaf of bread, and kind of makes a decision. Or something like one, anyway. He grabs a coat, and the bag of bread, and there is something like the almost desperation of a half-prayer too.

Elaine.

Or Madeline.

It can't hurt.

* * *

><p>Five.<p>

He already knows what is to come next in the story. It isn't hard for someone who remembers everything he's ever seen, but his fingers are itching in raw anticipation anyway. Maybe it really is possible for things to be harder to handle the second time around.

This isn't acceptance of what's about to happen, but records are records, the past is white ink bled dry, and there are no two ways around that. Everything is happening just as he remembers them to, and he's holding his breath slow, clenching his fists tight. There's no need to count to nine today.

They are at the cemetery again, only now the context of the place has changed. This isn't exactly a respected burial ground anymore; it's more like the prelude to a spiritual bloodbath, and the rest is already decided by the records. The rest is meant to happen in quick succession.

Lavi watches this last bit with a hand pressed over his mouth. There's so much he knows now, so much he's seen, in hindsight. Hindsight can't do a goddamn thing.

A shadow of a smile.

"Madeline, was it?"

Elaine. She's crying.

"If you had the chance to change your past," asks the Earl, "would you?"

And that look. And that goddamn look in her eyes when her mouth parts.

It's like.

_Because. Because even when no one's there, God's still listening._

_Your question from earlier about why people believe and all? Well, there's always going to be suffering. No one ever promised a fair or easy life. Things'll look up again if you just keep your end of the deal._

_I trust His plan for me.  
><em>

He can't tell whose breath is hitched now.

And spin.

And the stars again.

Burning.

_There's a time limit, Deak. _

_A time limit. Do you think there's anything we can do about it other than stupidly watch it pass by?_

The Earl is expectant.

And he's not thinking anymore. He's already made a decision without even consciously realizing it. Maybe it's not even _him_ who does any of this, but it is done. He plunges, and reaches.

Deak.

_Elaine._


	8. When time stands still

Six is for holding your breath. For holding your breath, because it's that proverbial coin toss in the air and you don't know which side will land face-up and which side will be wiped blank. Because the sky is tearing apart in slow silk breaths – ripping at the raw edges and you don't know if you're falling or if you're supposed to be screaming it out yet or not. Because you don't even know who the hell you're supposed to be anymore, because the only thing you know how to do is to count to nine.

* * *

><p>He can feel the nerves in his right eye pulsating.<p>

It's captured in a single still frame of a second, but he can see even with both eyes wide shut. He can see through a space of infinite blackness, and he can breathe normally too. He can see a roll of film reeling under the crust of crammed memories never meant to be relived or revisited for all of eternity, but.

You don't get to choose what happens to you.

_You are never who you think you are._

He is five and happy. Bookman is not what you could call a nice person per se, but Bookman is someone reliable to be around. Bookman is reassuring, though mostly in his own way. You'd have to know him to understand. And Bookman is easy to understand. Bookman is riddled with folded skin, but there are still traces of the most subtle commiseration etched in the contours of forgotten stories already long set in worn flesh. Bookman is Bookman.

Bookman asks for the single greatest sacrifice he could have ever asked for.

_Can you devote yourself to being a Bookman?_

And he'd been so _willing_. So he obliges, and so he says yes, and he gives up his namesake.

_You won't exist, though, ya know._

_Not like this._

A flicker of a shadow glances off his optic nerve. This voice is his own, he realizes. These shared tens of thousands of thoughts are his own too.

A rush of anxiety whispers straight down his back.

_You can't live like this._

_You can't._

_Don't be stupid. You gotta live like this._

_You—_

_I—_

He is—

Isn't.

A Bookman is meant to be many things but nothing at all in the same instant. The best thing a Bookman can do is to not exist – to fade away at any given moment so that the story can continue.

This, Bookman says with a slow and calculated arc in his voice, is the legacy of Bookmen.

So he is seven when he first learns about the Vatican, when he first looks for and finds God, and when he sees and records all that is done in His name for His will.

He is barely sixteen when he learns that he will never really understand and when he already knows that all he ever has to do is blindly watch and record.

He is barely sixteen when he's already lived and seen more than he's ever prepared himself to. He is barely sixteen when he is jaded beyond belief, when Bookman is grim and tells him about how stupid humans really are—when Bookman first introduces him to this stupid, sick, insane reality where things like resurrection and demons actually really do exist. When he's unofficially given up on the world and when he first meets this girl with the most impossible faith.

Elaine.

She's looking up at those stars again, and their crystal lights reflect. They tilt in a charming way, spinning like a clock work with a countdown.

His muscles twitch on instinct._  
><em>

_Don't move._

A cut of cards.

They spill; clatter.

_You've really fucked up this time._

He is Lavi now.

Lavi. He is Lavi when he takes on this new persona, when he leaves Deak in this complicated unresolved emotional mess, when the past is curled tight and gnawing at the smooth muscle of his aorta.

He closes his eyes. Bookman's words are especially domineering right now._ You have to decide for yourself._

Thing is, this isn't even _him_.

It's the combined effort of scores of personas all alone in space and time; all these personas borrowing the same bruised and broken body, and now every one of them is sunk in the desperation of perpetual identity crises.

This must be what Bookman had been referring to.

Re-experience.

Avoidance.

Hyperarousal.

Distress and distortion and despair and _it wasn't supposed to be like this._

The cards are rearranged now.

And it's.

_Why did you do this to yourself?_

Lavi blinks. Or maybe it could have been Deak all along. "Huh." He scratches his head. That's not right. It's not Deak who ever sees this scene. It's Lavi whose dreams are creeping up on him again and again. "This again?"

The table is before him again; the deck is stacked neat, cards laid flat. On the other side of the table, it's that goddamn dealer again. That dealer with the blank gray face and chapped sneer.

The Earl's words resound again. It'd initially been for Elaine, but the figure from across the table jeers anyway.

_If you had the chance to change your past, would you?_

This one's for Deak.

Deak picks up the card from the stack and grins half-heartedly before flicking it. He watches the joker card fall straight to the ground. "You know, if I'm the record keeper," he says pseudo-blithely, "then doesn't that mean history will be written the way I see it?"

The rest of the cards cut in black and red.

Deak—Deak falters.

There is nothing but the darkest sweep of blue and the Earl's words ringing again and again and again. The Joker's smile is stretching, distorting; wet ink bleeding in the darkest shade of black.

_Can you walk away from all you know?_

Deak hesitates.

Lavi closes his eyes and starts counting again. It's the most terrific work of reality control. It doesn't even matter who it is who says the next part.

"No. No. It doesn't."

He can't.

He already knows; had known all along. He should have known so much better than this. Time—time and history don't work like that.

* * *

><p>The rest happens in quick succession.<p>

The thing about rewriting something is that you can't alter one chapter without changing the whole story. Nothing in space or time ever exists alone. There's a chain reaction. There is the past, the present, and future, all of which are dependent on each other.

Drama. Conflict. Reactants. Collision courses. Products. Consequences.

For one moment, for just one moment, the coordinates of time and space align.

They touch. They meet.

And some things become so much more than that.

Elaine looks up at the Earl. Her voice is shaking. "What do you mean?"

The Earl is coaxing. "Your mother. I'm so sorry."

Elaine takes a step back, somewhat taken aback. "Um—"

The Earl moves terrifically, every step perfectly calculated and carefully designed to silently break defense. "I can't imagine what you had to go through."

Elaine stops, looks down, mouth soft – a perfect puppet. "Yeah, it's... yeah."

He doesn't put a hand on her shoulder, but the action is already implied. He waits for a few moments to pass before he says the next bit. It's, "I can bring her back. Your mom." He waits for the impact to sink in. "I can bring her back for you."

There is a long break before Elaine speaks up again. "That's not possible," she blurts out. "It's—"

"And what if I said it was? What if it could be done? Would you let your mom stay like that? Suffering because life wasn't fair? Letting her go when she could have had a second chance?"

Elaine closes her mouth.

The Earl continues, sympathy lining the promise in his mouth and hand. "I can help."

Elaine bites at her bottom lip. "I don't—"

This time, he's even gentler. Softer. Understanding. "Do you understand? This is what He would want. This is why I'm here. Because of Him."

And this time, there's a cut of resolve when she looks up. There's that glance in her eyes again. That naïve faith clashing with everything she could ever pray for. Or maybe she already did.

"It's been so hard." Her voice is caught and breaking. "I mean, why? Why did it have to happen like this? Why her? Why now? It's not—I don't—"

"That's why I'm here. I want to help. I want to help both you and your mother. I want you two to be happy again."

She's silent.

"And I can. I can make it happen."

Her gaze is glassy. "Can you? Why you? Why can I trust you?"

"Because I have nothing to take from you."

Lavi closes his eyes at this. The bastard is lying straight through his teeth and there's nothing he can do but watch, watch, and watch.

"If you do the things I ask, then I'll make it happen. Your mom—she'll come back. Can you believe in me?"

Lavi already knows. Seven eight nine.

Her mouth parts, "I want to."

* * *

><p>Ten; it happens.<p>

* * *

><p>Cut to dawn, where the sun is at its weakest.<p>

_This_ is just fucked-up.

_Has anyone ever told you about man-made demons?_

_But what if He's not? What if He's not listening, not ever? What if there are a lot of prayers He never gets to and suffering goes around anyway?_

He shouldn't have pressed that line. He should've. He should've acted instead of standing still and dumb. He should've done more than just fucking watch.

He doesn't even know how he got here, how he managed to stumble out of the graveyard undetected, but he's drinking tonight. His mouth tastes bitter. His eyesight is getting bleary and he doesn't talk to anyone in particular. He presses at his temples. He doesn't even know how to think anymore.

_Fuck fuck fuck._

The stars.

"The thing about forever—"

They're losing light.

"—is that there's no such fucking thing as forever. Everything has a time limit."

Crystal.

Fading fast.

His nails are digging into the palm of his hand. Thin red lines.

"Fuck, it doesn't even matter anymore."

He's right about this, of course. Both sides are wiped blank before the coin even lands. It's spinning in midair, but it doesn't even matter anymore and he's still forever away from waking up for real this time.

* * *

><p>And cut back.<p>

Six. Six is where he's been stuck, mentally, this whole time. It's the waiting – the _knowing_ exactly how the story ends – that's killing him slow. The watching and knowing there's nothing you can do, even if you try. No matter how many times you try. Six is the hardest part about forever.

* * *

><p>"Post-traumatic stress disorder," Bookman says. "You've heard of it before, Lavi."<p>

Bookman makes it a statement rather than a question, but Lavi confirms it anyway. It'll help him think. He could use a little logic right about now. And this is the first time Bookman ever explicitly said it. "Yeah." He puts a hand over his mouth in distress. It's almost a confession. "Yeah, but I never—" And stops. He's not sure what he thought he was going to say.

Bookman continues on, speaking with precision, words on the wrong side of sympathy. They are neither harsh nor comforting. They just are. "Is this just happening intermittently?"

"Kinda."

Bookman is a man of polished subtlety; he is not one to press for the details, but there is a fold of concern over his brow. "You understand what this means, right? What this means for your future?"

A beat. "Yeah." He pauses. "Yeah."

It's something that neither of them will ever say out loud if they can help it. A Bookman successor who doesn't have control over his memories is more than just a cause for concern. It's trauma. It's psychological suicide.

Bookman is looking vaguely thoughtful. "Can you separate time? Mentally. Can you figure out the events of the past from the ones of the present?"

This question is reassuring, somewhat. "Yeah, 'course, gramps. I can tell. I can tell when I'm looking back at Dea—uh, my memories."

The next one is a little trickier. "Can you tell if—when—your memories are changing, Lavi?"

He pauses.

The other thing about rewriting something is that it's dangerous. It's dangerous to our memories, and it's dangerous to our selves. We destroy ourselves in the process when we want to rewrite the past. Because that's when we rewrite ourselves, when we strip away everything that we are.

There's a flicker of uncertainty when he speaks up again. "N—I don't think they are."

Bookman hides his worry well. Succinct. "But you don't know."

Another beat, "Yeah."

"I see."

A slight silence.

Lavi picks at it. "And what happens if they are? If my memories really are rearranging? And if I don't know?" He's not sure if he wants to know the answer to this one.

Bookman pauses before finally picking up his teacup and sips at the cold liquid. "Nothing happens. You'll just have to watch it all. You'll lose yourself, maybe."

Watching. It's always the watching. He clenches his fist.

"But I'll help you, Lavi."

He looks up, startled. "Huh?"

Bookman arches an eyebrow. "What's with that pathetic face? Did I not teach you anything after all these years? I thought you wanted to be a Bookman."

"Of course I do," he blurts out. He's surprised by how easily the answer comes to him. "But—"

Bookman is just looking at him blandly.

He changes tactics. "Even if—?"

Bookman leans back in his chair. "I've already spent too much of my time on raising you to be a Bookman to let it all go to waste."

* * *

><p>He hopes Bookman's right. His memories are a total mess now.<p>

It's five.

This is an exchange – another chance meeting at another chance moment – that he almost forgets. But he doesn't forget. Bookmen don't forget, can't forget, no matter how hard they try. At least there's that. Even if everything's fucked up, he'll still remember it all.

Elaine peers into the glass display, examining the contents inside. He yawns.

Elaine glances over. She adopts an apologetic look. "Sorry, am I boring you?"

He waves it off breezily. "Nah, don't worry about it, I'm good. But what's so interesting about that anyway?"

She drums her fingers at the glass. "Hey, weren't you the one who said he liked craft-making? Check this out."

He leans over and inspects the chipping ink work and fading pigments. "Cards?" He says doubtfully.

"Yeah, the other day, my mom was telling me about tarot. It's like fortune-telling through cards or something like that, I think. Have you heard of it?"

He's vaguely miffed. "Of course I know what it is." And then stops. "Wait, you don't actually believe in that, right?"

Elaine is looking a little wistful. "Well, it would be nice if we could look into the future like that," she admits.

He shifts uncomfortably. This isn't exactly his style, but, "I know tarot, you know."

She bursts out laughing. "Yeah? You? Weren't you just making fun of them?"

He adopts an appropriately offended look. "It's for research purposes," he insists. It actually hadn't been; he'd been charmed by them once too, but he'll never tell her that. "But anyway, isn't there a better way than to rely on things like tarot cards?"

She pauses. "What do you mean?"

He thinks about it for a bit. "Like, shouldn't you be taking control of your own future and all?"

"Huh," she considers pseudo-thoughtfully, "That's probably the cheesiest thing I've ever heard you say."

A beat passes. He opens his mouth to retort but she beats him to it. "I mean, I never thought of you as a _carpe diem_ kind of guy."

The full phrase is Horace's. _Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero_. Seize the day, putting as little trust as possible in the future.

He shuts up.

* * *

><p>Five is for the dreamers. It's lucid dreaming for the yesterday rather than the tomorrow. It's that one perfect moment in time where it's too early to think about emotional attachment and too late to pull out safely. Five never lasts for too long. He pulls his head wrap down to the base of his neck. It's always about time though, he figures. Always about time. He closes his eyes and steels himself. Nine, eight, seven, six, six, six—<p>

* * *

><p>One more thing. This never ever happens either. It just never gets the chance to.<p>

There are far too many _never_s and _if_s, and not enough _happen_s and _will_s.

If.

If only.

"I'm sorry, Deak."

The voice is faded. Faded but familiar.

"I mean, I thought you were interesting. And well yeah, you were."

A brush of wind sweeps by. He blinks. "Uh—"

"—I mean, it's probably pretty obvious," she waves his dumb response off mostly nonchalantly, but her cheeks are touched with pink. "Since I went through all that trouble of bothering you all those times... even though I knew you probably didn't ever want me around. But—um, I don't know."

He closes his mouth.

"I mean, you remember the first time we met? The truth is, before I came up to you, I saw you. It was weird, because you were just watching people. I don't know, people don't really do that around here. But you watched them."

He remembers, of course. He doesn't forget.

"And you look like you hated everyone. Everything. You looked like you hated the world." She reflects. "And well, I guess that really bothered me, and I know it wasn't any of my business, but... well, I guess I wanted to do something about it, as stupid as this sounds. Yeah, sorry." She scratches the back of her neck sheepishly. "That was pretty uncalled for."

Cut to spring.

"And I wanted to hang out with someone who didn't know anything about the local gossip and about... well, you know. That's why I liked hanging out with you so much, even if you didn't. Sorry."

Cut to summer.

"I'm glad. I'm glad that I went and talked to you that first time... even though you were probably weirded out about me."

Indigo episodes.

Five.

"Anyway. Let's watch the stars again sometime, okay?"

Six is for holding your breath. For holding your breath because you don't know what's going to happen next. Because the future is only ever charted in graphite.

_It's time to let go, Lavi._

Lavi looks up at that short side of the sky and it takes some effort for his mouth to tip up in the breeziest smile he can manage.

His laugh is even shorter when it ends. He puts a hand over his mouth and then over his eyes. "What the fuck?"

He pauses. Later, maybe sometime far later, when time is done standing still, the burning stars will map the night sky again. And maybe the ends of their fire will be brighter this time around. And maybe this time around, it will be for Lavi, _for Lavi_, to see.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

The corners of Elaine's mouth are tipping up brilliantly. _Five is for the dreamers._

The rest is reality.

Raw, timed, searing, bleeding reality.

But.

_You know what the thing about stars is?_

He looks up wearily; they're burning again.

The stars.

Spinning. Spinning and spinning and spinning.

"...Of course I know," he scratches at the mess of hair on his head, half bemused and half insulted, before closing his eyes and yawning nonchalantly. A moment passes before he speaks up again. And this time, his voice is quieter. "I learned that one way before you did, you know."


	9. The story so far

Time's up.

* * *

><p>"Gramps," falter, "How can I forget?"<p>

Bookman doesn't even wait for long. "You can't."

On the edge of desperation—"Gramps—"

There are millions of thousands of hundreds of tens of memories and records crammed in Bookman's system. Bookman understands, in his own way. "Forgetting," Bookman says with a twist of the slightest empathy, with the untouched sympathy of a man who has been through it once long ago too, "It's not possible. Trying to forget will hurt you more than you can possibly imagine."

"Then what should I do?"

There is an appropriately measured pause before Bookman speaks again. "Record," Bookman says with the voice of a person who has tried and lived and tried. "Watch and record for as long as time permits. That's how you will live. That's how you will heal."

* * *

><p>The smile on his chapped, gray mouth is split wide. He taps at the glossy surface at the table, sips at his sugar-crusted tea. It is honey sweet, and Road curls up on the carpet, humming to herself, flicking long, neat nails at the sewn doll in her hand.<p>

A moment passes.

Road groans. "I'm so _bored_."

The Millennium Earl chuckles affectionately as Road climbs into his lap. "Now, now, Road," he starts lovingly.

Road piques. "Is there anything I can do?" The Noah asks eagerly.

The Earl pats the top of her head fondly. "Not now, sorry. But wait for just a little while. There might be something interesting for you to do soon enough."

Road sulks. "But why can't I do it _now_?"

There is a certain glance off the Earl's spectacles.

Road knows this look. She perks up again and her cheeks are lightly touched with pink. "Please?" She draws out her plea.

The Earl chuckles again. "All in due time, Road, all in due time."

"Can you at least tell me what it is?"

The Earl considers it for a while, chronicles his carefully constructed plots with the affection of telling a favorite bedtime story. "There are some interesting things happening with Bookman's successor right now," the Earl begins.

Road is vaguely interested. "What do you mean?"

"His memory is subjective."

Road is amused now. Her mouth is curling. "Huh, how?"

The Earl pats Road's head. "It seems that some trauma in his past has surfaced and is now affecting his recall capabilities."

Road thinks about this for a bit. "That's good! Wouldn't that make it easier for us to control?" Road is looking somewhat excited. "What happened? Is it death? Akuma? Seeing too much?"

The Earl muses her hair fondly. "That's my girl," he delights. "Of course. Of course. But this means that even though Bookman is currently on the Order's side, it will be easier for us to manipulate his successor if he's so unstable right now."

Road is eager. "Can I play with him then?"

A geometry of light glances off the Earl's spectacles. "Maybe, Road, maybe. Be patient for me." The Earl picks up a deck of cards from the table, cuts them. Flips the first one up—a black joker, another player in his game. The curl of his smile becomes even more pronounced now. "We'll see, Road."

* * *

><p>One year is how long it takes.<p>

Bookman isn't smiling, but it comes close. It's borderline approval. Not explicit enough to be definite, but shaped enough to be reassuring, and Lavi is feeling better. Stronger. Realer, too, maybe.

"You've done well," Bookman concedes.

* * *

><p>It's not mask crafting but it comes close, somewhat. It's probably as close as he'll ever get to it nowadays.<p>

Kanda just stares back rather gruffly. "What?"

Lavi grins and gestures cheerfully. "Just got back from a mission, yeah? Me too. Where'd you come from?"

Kanda's answer is succinct. He's come to expect that. The trick to dealing with Kanda, he figures, is to relate everything back to their line of duty, no matter how big the stretch. If nothing else, Kanda is a person of duty, through and through. It is something he can admire.

"Italy," Kanda says vaguely, "With the new Exorcist," he adds with an undisguised touch of distaste.

Lavi blinks before whistling lowly. "Oh damn—so it's not just a rumor, huh. What's he like?"

A beat. "Fucking annoying."

Lavi bursts out laughing before vigorously clapping Kanda's shoulder. "Oh damn. Come on, he can't be that bad, Yu."

Kanda's sheathed Mugen is at Lavi's throat. "What have I told you about that name?" He grits.

Lavi's already calculated this – already accounted for this – and theatrically holds up his hands in reflective nervous surrender. "Right, right, _Kanda_," he hastily corrects himself. He waits for Kanda to drop his sword before continuing. "But seriously, what's this guy like? I might have to work with him sometime too, ya know," he adds.

Kanda considers it briefly. "Naïve," he says flatly.

Lavi blinks again. _Naïve. _He's not sure how to feel about that one. "Um. Wow."

Kanda just scoffs. "You guys would make an annoying pair."

Lavi looks appropriately amused. "Hey, hey."

"It's true."

Lavi yawns. "You must be in a pretty good mood today, huh, Yu?"

Kanda just spares Lavi another scathing glance before he brushes past the other exorcist. "You know, you don't have to play stupid all the time," Kanda says disinterestedly, off-handedly, before turning the corner.

* * *

><p>The sky isn't exploding, and it doesn't come too close to it either. It is painted up in a devastating bright blue color, and he can only look at it for so long before he remembers. Before he remembers that things will begin to lose shape if you look at them for too long. He'd know.<p>

He hasn't been here in a while. He never imagined he'd ever even get the chance to, but Komui had tasked this mission to him and he'd taken it – part on duty and part on reflex, not that he'll ever admit to that. Bookman would probably have a field day if he'd put two and two together, he supposes bemusedly. Maybe.

It's a world, a reality, of coincidences and repeated histories. He's not sure how to feel about this.

So he walks instead. The streets are the same, skidded with cobblestones and milestones, but this is a part of town he's only been to once. It's not a place to frequent.

He wonders if he should hesitate more. He's never done this before, and he still doesn't know what he's supposed to do in every interpretation of the phrase, but he lays down the white flower on the cement slab. It seems appropriate.

_Madeline Sather_

He sits down for a bit in silence, bites down at his lower lip. He's not sure what to do. He's never been.

So he sits and remembers a conversation, a sermon, a lesson, a paradox. All of the above.

_Well, I've still got too much to live for_, he'd thrown out carelessly. It's at least a half-truth. _Can't stop here, you know what I mean?_

Elaine is understanding, but in all the wrong contexts, naturally.

He closes his eyes, skips.

Even further backwards.

_He acts in time_, Bookman once tells him.

He creates it. He creates it, destroys it, curses it, rejoices it.

And opens his eyes again.

White crushed in dirt.

Lavi considers it for a little while longer.

Elaine is still there. May always be, maybe. She stretches out her legs and tilts her heads, smiles. The context is always always _always_ wrong, and these are a few of the words she'll never say, "What're you up to today?"

* * *

><p>He leaves as soon as he can.<p>

Time has a lot to do with chess, Bookman explains. There are implications in each moment that passes. Implications in even the moments that repeat themselves in endless black-and-white drama.

He has never been very good at the whole faith thing and he's still not very good at it, but it's an interesting analogy to say the least. And he's trying. There are a lot of conversations etched in that bit of metaphoric stone, and so much more that will never be recorded. Some things don't happen.

One year is how long it takes him to remember who he is and where he comes from. One year is how long it's been since the brightest star in the sky explodes. Its remnants map the troposphere, dotting slow conversations like a telegraph message.

The troposphere is scattered with bits of crystals, each crusted with the promise of indigo. He reads them by the pixel. He reads them in pixels punctuated by fluctuations in time, and he hears the cheerful voice of the girl he never saves.

They'd been her words to him, but.

They brink on despair, even now. Or maybe it'd always been that way.

_Why did you try to kill yourself?_

Reality.

Reality control.

He closes his eyes and keeps a promise.

This, he decides, will probably take some time.

* * *

><p>When he gets back, Bookman is already waiting, watching, waiting.<p>

Lavi exaggerates a yawn, cups a hand over his mouth. "What's up?"

Bookman hands over a neat photograph.

Lavi peers over it, memorizes it by instinct. "And this is...?"

"His name is Allen Walker," says Bookman. "I'd like you to go and meet him."

The new Exorcist is supposedly short in stature and well-mannered for the most part. Or so the grapevine says. Kanda had after all crassly described the kid as an annoying shrimp, he recalls, and Lenalee likes him. That really hadn't been much to work with, but Lavi works around it anyway. He's gotten a lot better at being Lavi.

Bookman pronounces Allen Walker as the destroyer of time. It's a trick statement, he thinks. The sky is too bright a shade of blue for something like this.

Lavi is appropriately skeptical this time. "The destroyer of time?" he echoes.

Bookman sips at his tea. "That's right. The one who is predicted to have the best chance to defeat the Earl."

He notices Bookman's word choice and rethinks Deak. It's one of those things that just never happen, never will happen, never get to happen. "Best chance, huh?"

"He should be interesting, to say the least," Bookman concedes. There is a certain glimmer glancing off Bookman's eyes.

Lavi yawns. "That's one way of putting it, gramps." He stops and considers it an air of pseudo-professionalism. "So is that why we're going out now? To meet him, right?"

Bookman picks up his bags. "He and Lenalee are injured. I'm going to treat them."

Lavi yanks on his head wrap. Today, it is woven with turquoise – a color lost somewhere between tangerine and indigo. _What is lost can never be returned_ and yawns terrifically. "Gotcha," he says.

* * *

><p>Kanda's right. Naive is probably the most appropriate way to describe Allen Walker.<p>

An explosion.

The akuma multiply and multiply again.

Allen's reactions are slow. "How—how did you know?"

Lavi arches an eyebrow. The new exorcist is a total downer, he figures. "Ya know," he calls out. He's not very good at the whole consoling thing still and there are akuma all around, "I don't know, yeah? I'm suspicious of everything." He jumps, watches. "Someone I met yesterday could be an akuma today." Stops and considers it a little. "'Cause that's the type of thing we're up against."

A clatter of feet.

Lavi grins. "You should understand that, Allen. That's the kinda thing we're up against," he repeats, maybe more for himself than for the newcomer. Maybe not.

Allen blinks.

Lavi tries to elaborate a little more even though they are kind of in the midst of a battlefield of some sort. "We're different from you, ya know?" In so many ways. "Not having that convenient eye. Akuma mixed in with humans. The other exorcists and I..." his mouth tips up wryly. "We end up looking at all humans as the Earl's minions."

Gray meets green. Lavi grins cheerfully back.

It doesn't last, not that he'd expected that much. Things aren't meant to last, so another explosion detonates.

"Lavi—!"

"I'm fine," Lavi returns breezily, scratches at the back at his head. "They're all Level 1s anyway." He re-grips his hammer and looks at the boy Bookman calls the destroyer of time. What a joke. "So... come and help me out here, yeah?"

Fire explodes.

White light overwhelms before exploding too.

Lavi blinks.

Allen kneels over wounded elderly woman. "Are you okay?"

Mechanics click; a thin layer of white skin wrinkles, contorts.

The look in the other exorcist's unwounded human eye is empty and heavy all at once. "Too late." His unbandaged eye looks tired. It is a look that has seen more than enough. "Too late."

And the white light bursts again.

Lavi watches silently.

Allen Walker is still kneeling on the ground. "I think," pause, "I think I get it. I remember. I remember what I want to do."

There is a slight silence. Lavi blinks before grinning and lightly clapping the new exorcist's shoulder. It is a reassuring thing to hear. "That's good," he says breezily, pushes away a thought, a reminder, from the past that is and isn't really his. "That's good."

* * *

><p>It is good. It's good for Allen, at least.<p>

It is not easy to create and adhere to steadfast resolutions like his or to avoid these kinds of long, long nights where time dictates everything. Maybe he's never meant to have a chance. Some people just aren't. Bookman's right. Of _course_ Bookman is right. Trying to forget is far more difficult than he'd ever imagined it to be.

In the end, it is still all about time. Time and time and time. One, two, three, four breeze by easily. They're stage-setting. It's five when things start to get tricky.

He closes his eyes.

It's five. It's five when the first inflection point occurs. Five is for the dreamers; and six is for holding your breath. Seven and eight are for _god_ and_ how did it turn out like this_. Nine is about going by the book; equations and theorems and principles that parameter and scale outcomes; it's the wait. The wait and the watch and the wait again.

_Eleven_ is for eternity and for the color of the most luscious shade of indigo. It's knowing, it's _fuck ten_, it's living on the short side of forever, it's knowing you live on the edge of the discrete. It's the indefinite integral of breathing amplified.

Eleven is for the stars, burning and spinning and burning and spinning. It's for the unwritten history and for all the things that never ever happen. It's for Seral – for Seral and for Deak and for Elaine and for Lavi.

He tugs at his head wrap. The rest is up for reality control.

He already knows.

Those stars.

They're not exploding, but they come close.

He holds his breath for all of them. His eyes are glassy and the world outside is burning with the promise of indigo.

Elaine leans against his shoulder. "Nights like these are the best, huh? When you can see the sky clearly, I mean. You don't really get to see the sky like this in the city, you know?"

There is salt dusted on top of those stars. He closes his eyes. _The trick with time limits is that you only really ever know how long something won't last._

The trick is letting yourself slip in and out of reality – to deceive yourself with the ease of a hard-to-break secondhand habit, to hold onto those remnants of the past so that that the memories made don't crust. The trick is reality control. It's subconsciously knowing that you're living like this, subject to the derivative and inflection points of time, and doing nothing about it.

She starts to hum. "We should come up here more often."

He waits. He meets, re-meets, a girl who doesn't; lives and relives. It's not something that you forget or something that'll go away.

"It's a promise, okay? Deak?"

And opens his eyes.

_And breathe out, Lavi._

_And wake up, Lavi.  
><em>

Somewhere, the Earl is watching – plotting, gauging, speculating, and chuckling all the while. Somewhere, Kanda is training under that same canvas of spinning stars, too – Allen Walker is finding himself, losing himself, and finding himself again. Somewhere, there is this conscious notion of finite time, and a countdown from nine, and there is war and war again somewhere too.

Somewhere, Elaine raises her pinky finger in the air. It's a salute to a promise. _Don't die, alright _and the corners of her mouth lifts. He can feel the corners of his own mouth tipping up as he stretches his arms and yawns. He gets up, scratches at the back of his head. He glances at that infinite stretch of sky briefly and guesses the time. It's eleven. It's eleven and Bookman is waiting.

* * *

><p><strong>Fin.<strong>

Endnotes:

Reality control, a phrase that I used a few times throughout this story, refers to George Orwell's _1984_ concept of doublethink. Doublethink is basically rejecting objective reality and instead choosing to live in the realities we create. So in short, this story was more or less a concept sketch on how Lavi deals (or doesn't) with reality via revisited and/or altered memories and skewed sense of time.

That said, this honestly wasn't supposed to be much more than an extended character study (which is why I set it almost entirely pre-DGM). Take it how you want to, and thanks for everything!

–shoxxic, 11/25/2011


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